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DATE DUE 
 
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 GAYLORD 
 
 
 
 PRINTED IN Lt,5-A. 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 D 107.7.G81 
 
 Enslavers of WnaS..,/, 
 
 3 1924 027 779 689 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of tiiis book is in 
 tine Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027779689 
 
ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
Enslavers of Kings 
 
 BY 
 
 THORNTON HALL, F.S.A. 
 
 AUTHOR OF 
 "LOVE INTRIGUES OF ROTAL C0DRT3," ETC. 
 
 r 
 
 With Sixteen Reproductions from 
 Old Engravings 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 BRENTANO'S 
 
 1914 
 
a 
 
 
 3^2 
 
 -79/3 
 
 THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH 
 «.1 P 
 
 ,/H^'-~.^*' 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 , CHAPTER 
 
 I. A Princess and her Lovers 
 II. An Imperial Wooer . 
 
 III. The Triumph of a Favourite 
 
 IV. A Magdalene of the i8th Century 
 V. The Infatuation of a King 
 
 VI. A Royal Woman-Hater 
 VII. The Romance of the "Beloved Princess" 
 VIII. Monsieur le Due and the Marquise 
 IX. A Fatal Passion 
 X. The Shaven Adventuress 
 XI. A Dauphine of France 
 XII. The Mad King's Bride 
 
 XIII. A Marriage that Failed 
 
 XIV. The Last of the Favourites 
 XV. A Queen of the Palais Royal 
 
 XVI. Diane the Sorceress 
 
 XVII. A Fair Tragedienne . 
 
 XVIII. The King and the Wild Rose 
 
 XIX. A Daughter of Poland 
 
 XX. The Romance of a Mad Emperor 
 5 
 
 7 
 
 21 
 
 35 
 49 
 63 
 
 77 
 90 
 
 119 
 
 146 
 
 159 
 172 
 
 187 
 200 
 2-12 
 226 
 239 
 251 
 265 
 
6 
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XXI. 
 
 A Traitress to Love 
 
 277 
 
 XXII. 
 
 A Princess of Monaco 
 
 290 
 
 XXIII. 
 
 A Prince's Folly 
 
 304 
 
 XXIV. 
 
 A Queen of Tragedy 
 
 • 3^5 
 
 XXV. 
 
 The Romance of a Tsar 
 
 327 
 
 XXVI. 
 
 An Enchanter of Men 
 
 340 
 
 XXVII. 
 
 A Queen of Spain 
 
 352 
 
 XXVIII. 
 
 A Prodigal Duke 
 
 36s 
 
 XXIX. 
 
 The "Playthings" of a King 
 
 379 
 
 XXX. 
 
 The Distractions of a Warrior . 
 
 392 
 
ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 
 
 In all the long roll of France's kings there is 
 perhaps only one whose name has power to stir 
 the pulses of the Frenchman of to-day : the gay and 
 gallant Henri de Navarre, who played so romantic 
 a part on the stage of the sixteenth century. 
 Carrying through a hundred battles the heart 
 of a lion, fighting his dogged way over almost 
 insurmountable difficulties to a throne, he was 
 for nearly twenty years the most heroic figure 
 in Europe, inspiring his enemies with admiration 
 and fear, and his friends with a devotion that 
 almost reached idolatry. 
 
 And with this strain of the hero was mingled 
 the hot blood of the Bourbons, which made his 
 conquests in the field of love no less remarkable 
 than his feats on the field of battle. From his 
 boyhood to the last day on which Ravaillac's 
 dagger-thrust put a tragic end to his life, one love 
 intrigue succeeded another, until he had counted 
 his acknowledged mistresses to many more than 
 7 
 
8 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 his years — ^from Florette, the gardener's daughter, 
 to the high-born Henriette d'Entragues, whose 
 " affection " he purchased at the price of a hun- 
 dred thousand golden crovms, and whom Sully 
 describes as " a minx, a vicious wasp, a shrew, an 
 impertinent woman." 
 
 If it had been Henri's fortune to find a wife able 
 to enchain his heart and restrain his wayward 
 fancy, his story would no doubt have read very 
 differently ; and it was thus an unkind fate that 
 linked his life, at the threshold of manhood, with 
 that of Marguerite de Valois, a woman of as lax 
 views of morality as himself, and who never pro- 
 fessed the least affection for her gallant young 
 husband. 
 
 It would indeed have been strange if the Valois 
 princess had been other than she was, one of the 
 most inconstant queens in history ; for she had 
 for father the dissolute Henri II., of whose many 
 favourites Diane de Poitiers is the most famous, 
 and for mother, Catherine de Medicis, one of the 
 most infamous women who ever wore a crown, of 
 whom Chateaubriand says, " Daughter of a family 
 of merchants raised to the Principality of a 
 Republic, she was accustomed to intrigues, to 
 poisonings, to dagger-thrusts." Without heart 
 or conscience or morals, this shameless daughter 
 of the Medicis has come down to us through the 
 centuries a creature of horror, branded with many 
 
■Wa/ra:u£^(/s ^ mA9/^. 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 9 
 
 a secret crime, one of which was the murder of 
 Jeanne d'Albret (mother of Henri de Navarre), 
 with a pair of poisoned gloves. 
 
 With such parents, and surrounded by the most 
 depraved Court in Europe — a. Court of which Queen 
 Jeanne wrote to her son : " Great as I conceived its 
 corruption, it exceeds the idea I had formed of it. 
 Here the women do the love-making, and not the 
 men " — ^it was almost inevitable that Marguerite, 
 Catherine's youngest surviving daughter, should 
 grow up to young womanhood " one of the most 
 corrupt damsels in a thoroughly corrupt Court." 
 It is true that she had inherited but little of her 
 mother's love of intrigue and cruelty — ^the cruelty 
 which led her to take her young children to gloat 
 over executions ; Marguerite was not without 
 heart, although two assassinations have been laid 
 to her charge. She was a gay, light-hearted 
 princess, full of impish mischief, and delighting 
 in shocking les convenances. Of morals she seems 
 to have had no conception from her earliest years. 
 
 She had, we are told, two lovers before she had 
 passed her twelfth year ; and when one of them 
 was married, and the other sent packing from the 
 Court, the lady transferred her affection to a third, 
 the Prince de Martigues. Like her future husband, 
 Henri de Navarre, she changed her lovers as lightly 
 as she changed her dresses ; always, however, 
 cherishing a sentimental memory of them, and, it 
 
10 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 is said, " preserving the hearts of those who were 
 dead, in silver boxes, which she carried in the 
 numerous pockets of her immense farthingale or 
 crinoUne around her person ! " 
 
 " In each of these pockets," says TaUement des 
 Reaux, " she used to put a box in which was the 
 heart of one of her lovers who had died, for she was 
 of a careful turn of mind, and as soon as they passed 
 away, caused their hearts to be embalmed. This 
 farthingale was hung up every night from a hook, 
 which was fastened with a padlock behind the head 
 of her bed." 
 
 Even Catherine de Medicis, whose cold blood 
 did not allow laxity of morals to figure among her 
 many vices, was both shocked and alarmed by her 
 youngest daughter's frivolity. It was all very well 
 for her own demoiselles d'honneur to practise the 
 arts of gallantry — ^they were indeed methodically 
 instructed in such arts, for they served as so many 
 beautiful pawns in her games of political intrigue ; 
 but for her daughter it was a different and a 
 dangerous matter, and the sooner she was safely 
 wedded to a husband who could keep her wayward- 
 ness in check, the better ! 
 
 But even the finding of a husband for her own 
 daughter, Catherine made to minister to her own 
 designs ; and when she and her son, Charles IX., 
 arranged the nuptials of Marguerite and the young 
 King of Navarre, the marriage was but a mask to 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 11 
 
 hide a project more diabolical than she had ever 
 yet conceived. Henri was the recognised head of 
 the detested Huguenots, who were a constant 
 menace to her son's throne. His wedding would 
 lure to Paris all his chief followers, who, their 
 suspicions thus disarmed, would be caught in a 
 trap, and could be annihilated to a man. 
 
 Queen Jeanne d'Albret seems to have had a 
 presentiment of evil ; for she wrote to Henri from 
 Paris, where she had gone to arrange the terms of 
 the proposed marriage, " Marguerite is beautiful 
 and well informed, and of goodly bearing, but has 
 been nourished in the most corrupted and accursed 
 society that ever existed ; and I would not for 
 anything in the world have you come here to 
 remain in it." 
 
 A few weeks later, on 17th August 1572, the 
 marriage was celebrated amid scenes of unparalleled 
 pomp and magnificence — " more " (as the princess 
 proudly writes in her Memoirs) " than those of 
 anyone else of my degree." But Marguerite's 
 heart was not hers to give with her hand ; it was 
 in the possession of the young and handsome Henri 
 de Guise, whom she loved with all the ardour of 
 her passionate nature ; and it was thus a very 
 reluctant if lovely bride who stood at the altar with 
 Henry of Navarre. So reluctant was she that, 
 we are told, she refused point-blank to say " yes " 
 during the ceremony ; " whereupon the fiery 
 
12 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Charles IX. furiously pushed down his sister's 
 head "—an action that was taken to imply consent 
 by the Cardinal de Bourbon, who was performing 
 the nuptial service. 
 
 Four days later the streets of Paris were running 
 with the blood of thousands of murdered Huguenots 
 who had followed their champion to Paris—" drawn 
 there for the wedding, in order that they might be 
 butchered." Thus Catherine had the reward of 
 her plotting ; and the nuptials of her daughter 
 were baptised in blood. 
 
 " As for me," the bride records, " I had been told 
 nothing of all this " ; and indeed her first warning 
 of the horror that had fallen upon Paris was when 
 one of her husband's officers, pursued by four 
 archers, burst into her room, bleeding from two 
 wounds in his arm, and flung himself on her bed. 
 " I, feehng that these men had hold of me " (to 
 quote her own words) " flung myself out on the 
 bedside, and he after me, holding me all the time 
 round the body. I did not know this man, and I 
 did not know if he came there to insult me, nor if 
 the archers were after him or me. We were both 
 crying out, and each of us frightened of the other." 
 Even Henry himself only escaped the general 
 massacre of his co-religionists on condition that 
 he professed himself a Catholic. 
 
 A union thus cradled in tragedy and treachery 
 seemed foredoomed to unhappiness ; and, indeed, 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 13 
 
 from the first, husband and wife drifted swiftly 
 apart, eachfoUowing the path of individual pleasure. 
 While Henri found consolation in the smiles of 
 the beautiful Madame de Sauve, whose favours he 
 shared with his brother-in-law, the Due d'Alengon, 
 and many another gallant, Marguerite had her own 
 court of lovers, eager to worship at the shrine of 
 her beauty, which was famous throughout Europe. 
 Such was her loveliness, Brantome tells us, that 
 strangers came from all parts to look on it, and 
 went away declaring that they had seen the most 
 beautiful woman in the world. 
 
 Of the gallants who thus ministered to her vanity 
 and her pleasure the list is at least as long as that 
 of her husband's favourites. One lover succeeded 
 another in long sequence almost to the last year 
 of her life, when two infatuated b<.ys, the elder 
 barely twenty years of age, were fierce rivals for 
 the favour of the obese and middle-aged Queen, 
 who " wore large masses of flaxen hair, to obtain 
 which she kept several fair-haired footmen, whose 
 heads were shaved at stated periods." 
 
 One of these boys, infuriated by jealousy, shot 
 his fellow-page and rival dead, by the side of the 
 Queen's carriage ; and, a few days later, walked 
 gaily to the scaffold, while the woman for whom he 
 had flung away his young life looked from a window 
 on his death struggles, a smile of satisfaction on 
 her face ! 
 
14 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 But of all these lovers of a queen two stand out 
 with special prominence by virtue of the romance 
 and tragedy with which their stories are invested — 
 Joseph de Boniface, Seigneur de la Mole, and Louis 
 de Clermont, usually known as Bussy d'Amboise. 
 There was no handsomer or more fascinating young 
 noble in France than de la Mole, who was not only 
 known as the most graceful dancer at Court, but 
 as a Prince of Lotharios, who divided his days 
 between his amours and attendance at the Mass. 
 When the Due d'Alengon, whose favourite he was, 
 once asked him why he thus fluctuated between 
 love and piety, he laughingly explained that by his 
 frequent devotions he was absolved from the conse- 
 quences of his many sins against the moral code. 
 
 Such was the lover who took the place of Due 
 Henri de Guise (probably the only man she ever 
 really loved), in the favour of Marguerite — a hand- 
 some, ingratiating, unprincipled man, who made 
 the greatest blunder of his life when for a time 
 he deserted his dancing and his dallying to play 
 a part in the great plot of 1574 between the 
 Huguenots and the Moderate Catholic (or Politique) 
 Party. The day for the rising had been already 
 fixed when Catherine received her first inkling of 
 the conspiracy, and in her alarm besought her 
 daughter Marguerite to extract all the information 
 as to its details she possibly could, from her lover, 
 de la Mole. 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 15 
 
 " What," says Colonel Haggard, "could the 
 fooUsh la Mole do, when, with her glorious eyes 
 melting into his own, the beautiful young Queen of 
 Navarre begged him, as a proof of his love for her, 
 to tell her all his secrets ? With misplaced confi- 
 ence, he poured into her ear every detail of the 
 conspiracy. And Marguerite — ^what did she do ? 
 The fair traitress, after rewarding her lover with 
 an embrace, went off to her mother — and revealed 
 everything." A few hours later, de la Mole and 
 a fellow-conspirator, Coconas, were arrested and 
 flung into prison, and, after being cruelly tortured, 
 were condemned to death. 
 
 De la Mole took to the scaffold the light heart he 
 had carried through life ; for, as the axe was raised 
 to sever his head from his tortured body, after 
 commending his soul to God, he cried out gaily : 
 " Recommend me to the good graces of the Queen 
 of Navarre — and all the ladies." After the execu- 
 tion, we read in the "Divorce Satyrique," "the 
 Queen of Navarre and the Duchesse de Nevers 
 rescued the heads of their respective lovers from 
 the poles on which they had been exposed to de- 
 rision. They carried off the heads themselves, put 
 them in their chariot, went off with them to the 
 Chapel of St Martin, and, after bathing them with 
 their tears, buried them themselves there with their 
 own fair hands." 
 
 But Marguerite soon dried her crocodile tears to 
 
16 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 smile on the wooing of two new lovers. Messieurs 
 Saint-Luc and Mayenne, who served to pass the 
 time pleasantly until they were supplanted by 
 that famous swordsman and lady-killer, Bussy 
 d'Amboise, a man odious to Marguerite's brother 
 the King, and especially to his chief mignon, Louis 
 Beranger du Guast, an arrogant, overbearing 
 satellite, of whom de Thon tells us, " He did not 
 spare the first ladies of the Court, whose reputation 
 he pubhcly assailed even in the presence of his 
 Majesty ; he had even the impudence to slander 
 one illustrious princess." 
 
 As Bussy d'Amboise was in the service of her 
 favourite brother, the Due d'Alen^on, Marguerite 
 had abundant opportunities of meeting this preux 
 chevalier. " They were continually together," she 
 says, " and in consequence with me, my brother 
 and I being constantly in each other's company, 
 and he having ordered his attendants to honour 
 and pay respect to me as much as to himself." 
 And we may be sure it was not long before the most 
 volatile of royal ladies lost her heart to the "bravest 
 man in France," of whom she wrote in later years, 
 " There did not exist at that time, of his sex and 
 quahty, anything similar in valour, reputation, 
 grace or wit." 
 
 This Uaison, however, was destined to be no less 
 troubled and tragic than its predecessor with the 
 ill-fated de la Mole. The King was furious at the 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 17 
 
 new infatuation of his sister for a man who had 
 already killed several of his beloved mignons in 
 the duel ; and he required no prompting from du 
 Guast to determine to be rid of him. Assassina- 
 tion was as favourite a weapon of the King as of his 
 de Mediics mother ; and, at du Guast 's suggestion, 
 three hundred men of the Regiment des Gardes 
 were placed in ambush to waylay and slay the 
 too amorous seigneur. 
 
 But Henri had not counted on the prowess of 
 his intended victim. Although d'Amboise was 
 carrying his right arm in a sling- — a pale grey scarf 
 embroidered by Marguerite's fair hands — and was 
 accompanied by but a handful of friends, he made 
 so stout a fight that he not only kept the three 
 hundred soldiers at bay, and laid low a dozen of 
 them, but made good his escape without a scratch. 
 " As soon as it was daylight," Marguerite records, 
 " he returned to the Louvre with as gallant and gay 
 demeanour as if this attack upon him had been 
 merely a little passage-at-arms arranged for his 
 amusement." 
 
 If the redoubtable d'Amboise could not be 
 assassinated — ^indeed he seemed to bear a charmed 
 life — ^he could at least be removed to a safe distance. 
 The days of pleasant dallying with a queen were 
 over, for a time at least ; and soon (to quote 
 Marguerite 's own words) ' ' Bussy took his departure , 
 attended by the most gallant of the nobles of my 
 
18 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 brother's retinue." A little later she herself was 
 put under close arrest in her apartments in the 
 Louvre with guards placed at every door. 
 
 Meanwhile her banished lover was doing doughty 
 deeds with his sword in the war against Navarre, 
 his courage inspired by thoughts of his imprisoned 
 queen. On one occasion, having disarmed an ad- 
 versary, he was about to despatch him, when the 
 vanquished officer appealed for mercy in the name 
 of his conqueror's lady-love. " Thereupon," says 
 Brantome, " Bussy, struck to the heart by the 
 saying, replied, ' Go then, seek through the world 
 the most beautiful princess and lady in the universe, 
 throw thyself at her feet and thank her, and tell her 
 that Bussy has spared thy life for love of her.' 
 And this was done." 
 
 Returned from the war, Bussy still found himself 
 an object of hatred to the King ; audit was not long 
 before further desperate attempts were made on 
 his life, in all of which it was his would-be assassins 
 who were worsted, while he escaped unscathed ; 
 and, after disposing of two more of Henri's mignons 
 in duels, he was again banished from the Court — 
 this time to fill the post of Governor of the Citadel 
 of Angers. 
 
 Here, far removed from his royal mistress, he 
 proved himself to be no chevalier sans reproche 
 in the lists of love. He lost his heart to Diane, 
 the "young and beautiful wife of the Comte de 
 
A PRINCESS AND HER LOVERS 19 
 
 Monsoreau, whose castle was but a few miles from 
 Angers, and entered into an open liaison with her. 
 When news of this amour came to the ears of the 
 King, he realised that at last he had the long- 
 delayed opportunity of vengeance on the man 
 who had so long annoyed him. He advised the 
 outraged husband of the Comtesse, who was 
 then present at Court, to return to Angers with 
 a body of men and slay the betrayer of his 
 honour. 
 
 Thus, one night, when Bussy was dallying with 
 the Comtesse in her boudoir, the door was flung 
 open, and in poured a crowd of armed men. Bussy, 
 though caught like a rat in a trap, determined to 
 sell his life dearly. Quick as lightning he was on 
 his feet with drawn sword, cutting and thrusting 
 and parrying as his assailants attacked him, six 
 at a time. One after another they fell before 
 his deadly sweeps and lunges, until his sword 
 broke at the hilt. Still undaunted, he broke 
 off the leg of a table, and with it laid low 
 many more before at last he fell, a sword 
 through his heart, and bleeding from a score of 
 wounds. 
 
 Such are a few of the many love affairs of 
 Marguerite, Queen of France and Navarre, who, but 
 a few days before death claimed her, one March 
 day in 1615, was taking part in a ballet at the 
 Louvre, and ogling the young courtiers as brazenly 
 
20 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 as when, fifty years earlier, she ran away from her 
 school-books to present an embroidered scarf to 
 the Prince de Martigues, and bade him wear it at 
 Court as her accepted lover. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 AN IMPERIAL WOOER 
 
 Abnormal as a man, Napoleon the First was still 
 more abnormal as a lover. With the hot blood of 
 Corsica in his veins, love was almost as necessary 
 to him as the air he breathed. Had he been cast 
 in the mould of many of the Louis', his predeces- 
 sors on the throne of France, it would have been 
 his chief and most absorbing occupation. But 
 Napoleon had a much more serious mission in 
 Ufe than dancing attendance on women, however 
 seductive ; and thus passion was seldom more 
 than a feverish incident in a strenuous career. 
 
 " He wasted little time in dalliance," as 
 M. Masson rightly says. " His wooing was abrupt 
 and peremptory. He has been called brutal where 
 perhaps he might be more justly described as 
 hurried and preoccupied. He took such distrac- 
 tions hastily, as he took his meals." 
 
 Even when his heart was most engaged he could 
 brook none of the delays which woman loves to 
 place between her lover and her surrender. Even 
 to Madame Walewska, whom he loved more deeply 
 and devotedly than almost any other of his 
 mistresses, he exhibited an impatience that can 
 
 21 
 
22 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 only be described as brutal. When the beautiful 
 Pole, torn between the love of her country which 
 inspired her sacrifice, and her passion for virtue, 
 resisted all his advances and spumed his gifts, 
 shrinking all the time from a surrender which she 
 knew was inevitable, Napoleon's baffled desire at 
 last found expression in a tempest of rage. 
 
 " You shall," he shouted, with flaming eyes, at 
 one memorable interview ; " yes, I repeat it, you 
 shall love me ! I have restored the name of your 
 country. It owes its very existence to me ! I 
 will do more than this for it. But look at this 
 watch in my hand. Just as I dash it to fragments 
 before you, so will I shatter Poland and all your 
 hopes if you drive me to desperation by rejecting 
 my heart, and refusing me yours." 
 
 Terrified by these threats, and the violent 
 gesture with which he threw the watch from him, 
 the unhappy woman sank helpless on the floor. 
 When she recovered from her swoon the long 
 conflict was over, and the victor was beside her, 
 wiping away the tears that rolled slowly from her 
 eyes. 
 
 And thus it ever was with Napoleon, with very 
 few exceptions. He brought to his love-making 
 the unbending will and the fierce onslaught which 
 inspired his campaigns. Never was lover more 
 imperious ; seldom has be been more successful. 
 Even to Josephine he was to the last lover and not 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 23 
 
 husband. She ruled him through his senses ; she 
 never really captured his heart. And yet, when 
 once his conquest was assured, few men could be 
 more tender, even more sentimental. He could, 
 and did, " pass from the fury of an uncontrollable 
 passion to the most suave and delicate phases of 
 sentimental emotion. Nothing escaped him, no- 
 thing was unknown to him in the whole range of 
 amorous sensation ; and as far as he himself was 
 concerned, from the personal and egotistic point 
 of view, he was an ideal lover." 
 
 There was, however, at least one case in which 
 this autocratic man, with all the fierce primitive 
 passion of Peter the Great, was as shy and 
 awkward in his wooing as any boy couching his 
 maiden lance in the lists of love. The story, as it 
 has come down to us, lacks completeness ; the 
 very name of the woman who is its heroine seems 
 to be unknown, or at least her identity is veiled 
 behind asterisks. But of the main facts, which 
 were not revealed until Napoleon had long been 
 dust, there appears to be no doubt. 
 
 When " Madame * * * " first appears on the 
 scene Napoleon was within sight of his Imperial 
 crown, the most powerful and awe-inspiring figure 
 in Europe ; and Josephine had already worn her 
 wedding ring for seven years. Madame * * *, at 
 the time, was a young woman of twenty, wedded 
 to a grave official some thirty years her senior ; 
 
24 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 and she was incomparably the fairest of all the 
 women who adorned the Consular Court. 
 
 Of her origin and earlier years the records teU 
 us nothing. We know, however, that in this year 
 of 1803 she was ravishingly beautiful — ^an epitome 
 not only of all the charms, but of all womanly 
 accomplishments. She was, we are told, a creature 
 all grace and sweetness, with a pretty face, beauti- 
 ful teeth and abundant fair hair. Her nose was 
 aquiline, and though somewhat long, deUcately 
 arched, and full of character. Her foot was small, 
 her hand beautifully modelled. She had, too, 
 " a bewitching smile which, combined with the 
 long glances of a pair of deep blue eyes, gave an 
 expression of pecuUar harmony to her face." 
 
 Such was " Madame * * * " when Napoleon first 
 set covetous eyes on her. Nor was such beauty 
 by any means all her dower ; for Madame had 
 a wide range of accomplishments calculated to 
 captivate men much less impressionable than the 
 First Consul. She was the most graceful dancer 
 and exquisite singer at his Court ; she played the 
 harp as no other could play it ; wit and repartee 
 came as readily to her lips as music to her dainty 
 fingers ; and she could argue as learnedly with 
 a bishop as she could discuss statesmanship 
 with Napoleon himself. Although, too, she had 
 apparently been cradled in a middle-class home, 
 she carried herself like a princess, with a grace and 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 25 
 
 dignity as impressive as her courtesy was win- 
 ning, and her elegant toilettes a cause of envy to 
 every woman at Court. 
 
 Such was this paragon of all the perfections whom, 
 it is said, Josephine surprised in her husband's 
 company in the orangery of St Cloud one evening 
 in the year 1803. What love-making, if any, had 
 preceded this disconcerting incident, appears not 
 to be known ; but such as it may have been, it 
 had escaped the jealous and watchful eyes of 
 Napoleon's wife. 
 
 If, as seems improbable, this was the first meeting 
 of the lovers, it was followed by many another 
 hour equally stolen and no doubt equally sweet. 
 We read of stealthy visits paid by the Consul 
 to a small house in the Allee des Veuves 
 which Jiad Madame for tenant, and of still 
 more secret visits made by Napoleon, alone and 
 disguised, to another house which she occupied 
 later. We learn, too, that his temper became at 
 this time markedly more serene, and his manner 
 more affable, a tribute no doubt to the new and 
 happy influence that had come into his life. So 
 assured was he of his conquest that he could even 
 afford to smile at the rivalry of his stepson, Eugene 
 de Beauharnais, who was the fair lady's shadow 
 when the First Consul was otherwise engaged. 
 
 When the Court accompanied Napoleon to 
 Fontainebleau to receive the Pope, who came to 
 
26 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 grace his coronation, it was Madame * * * and not 
 Josephine who was always by Napoleon's side, the 
 receiver of his confidences, the object of his rare 
 smiles ; and each day served to fan the flames of 
 his wife's impotent jealousy. Returned to Paris, 
 he rarely visited Josephine's apartments unless 
 his new divinity was among the ladies in attend- 
 ance, and then he seemed unable to tear himself 
 away ; and when Josephine went to the play, her 
 husband was to be seen in another box, making 
 open love to her rival. To all his wife's expostula- 
 tions, even to her tears, he was indifferent ; and 
 when Madame * * * was not present, the gay face 
 he presented to the world became gloomy, his 
 amiability turned to suUenness or irritability, until 
 Josephine wrote, " Scarcely a day passes without 
 some outbreak of Napoleon, and always without 
 the least cause. Life is not worth living under 
 such conditions." 
 
 The autocrat of Europe was as ingenious in his 
 devices to enjoy the company of his lady as any 
 love-sick boy. He hated cards, but he was rarely 
 so happy as when, under a pretence of playing 
 whist, he could spend a delightful hour in Madame 's 
 company, while his wife, at a neighbouring table, 
 was distracted by the sound of honeyed words and 
 the sight of his smiles, of which her rival was the 
 object. 
 
 But in all his wooing of Madame * * * Napoleon 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 27 
 
 was gentle, almost diffident. The man who was 
 accustomed to ride rough-shod over the scruples 
 of other women was as tender and chivalrous as 
 any mediseval knight in his advances to this lady 
 of mystery and beauty. At a great coronation 
 f6te, for instance, the Emperor (as he now had 
 become) exchanged gracious words with every 
 other lady guest before he made his shy way to 
 Madame's table ; and even in her presence it was to 
 her neighbour that he addressed his first remark, 
 an oblique compUment to Madame, whom he saw 
 eating olives. " I see you do not eat ohves," he 
 said to the lady. " You are quite right ; and 
 doubly right not to imitate Madame * * *, for she 
 is inimitable." 
 
 When the Empress, whose eyes had noticed the 
 incident, summoned to her presence the lady who 
 had abstained from the ohves, and heard her story, 
 she said venomously : " While the Emperor was 
 advising your friend, he might have told her thaf 
 it is ridiculous to attempt the part of Roxalana 
 with a nose as long as hers." 
 
 That Josephine had excellent grounds for her 
 jealousy and her venom, in spite of the seeming 
 innocence of her husband's open flirtations with 
 Madame, we know from the fact that one cold 
 winter night at Malmaison she watched, from behind 
 a glass door, her husband making his stealthy way 
 along the flagged corridors to the room of her 
 
28 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 rival. In later years she admitted that, of the two 
 women who had shared Napoleon's affection with 
 her, Madame * * * was the one who had caused her 
 the most heart-pangs. 
 
 But the Empress was not long to be dispossessed 
 of her throne ; for Napoleon's passion for her most 
 dangerous rival had burnt itself to ashes within a 
 year, and he was confessing his infatuation and his 
 folly to his wife, and begging her to help him out of 
 the entanglement ! Satiety had cured him as it 
 always did, except with Josephine herself ; and 
 although he remained the most loyal of friends to 
 Madame, as she to him, until the year of his down- 
 fall, there were no more stories of secret rendezvous 
 between them ; and all that served to recall the 
 liaison was the child bom nine months after 
 Josephine made her surprise visit to the St Cloud 
 orangery — a child whose advent raised no suspicion 
 in the breast of Madame 's middle-aged husband. 
 
 Napoleon, however, was never long true even to 
 the wife who had seen so many rivals come and go, 
 only to wrest the supremacy from each in turn ; 
 Etnd within two years of her dethronement Madame 
 * * * had a successor in Eleonore Denuelle de la 
 Plaigne, a lady more designing and accommodating 
 than herself, who made her appearance at Court in 
 1806. Eleonore, who had for father a gambler 
 and roue, and for mother a lady who allied 
 beauty to a disregard for morals, first appears 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 29 
 
 on the scene as pupil at the famous school at 
 St Germain-en-Laye, which had for principal 
 Madame Campan, formerly lady-in-waiting to 
 Marie Antoinette. 
 
 The St Germain school was the most exclusive in 
 France ; its pupils were drawn from the highest 
 famiUes, and included a number of new-fledged 
 royalties — Napoleon's sister and niece, and 
 Josephine's daughter, nieces and cousins. How 
 Mademoiselle Eleonore came in this aristocratic 
 " galley " it is not easy to understand ; for while 
 she was undoubtedly of middle-class origin, her 
 schoolfellows, with few exceptions, could boast 
 royal or noble blood, however new the strain. 
 That she made good use of her opportunities we 
 shall see. 
 
 Her schooldays over, it became a matter of 
 urgency to Eleonore's parents, deep in debt and 
 living from hand to mouth, to find as eligible a 
 husband as possible for their daughter, who, if 
 she had no heritage of money or moral gifts, was 
 at least fair to look upon, with the beauty of dark 
 eyes, glorious black hair, a tall and graceful figure, 
 and all the practised arts of a coquette. This 
 husband they found in a dashing army captain, 
 whose acquaintance they first made at the theatre ; 
 and it was not until the honeymoon had waned that 
 they made the discovery that their son-in-law was 
 a scamp of " the first water," whose boasted birth 
 
30 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 and riches were as nebulous as his morals, and who 
 at the time of his wooing was actually living on 
 credit at an obscure inn. A month later he was 
 within prison walls on a charge of forgery. 
 
 Thus early had the fabric of Eleonore's ambition 
 tumbled in the dust ! But she was no girl to sit 
 down and weep among its ruins. In this hour of 
 her misfortune she recalled her old schoolfellow, 
 Caroline, the Emperor's sister, and to her she took 
 her pitiful story, with brimming eyes, whose appeal 
 the princess was unable to resist. A few days later 
 she was installed in a humble place in Caroline's 
 household and proved herself so useful and so 
 ingratiating that, before a month had passed, she 
 was promoted to the post of reader to her Imperial 
 Highness. 
 
 Nothing could have been more desirable to 
 Eleonore than this sequence of events ; for it 
 brought her under the notice of Napoleon, whose 
 weakness she knew as well as any lady at his Court. 
 It was not in vain that she spread the snare of 
 her charms before the amorous Emperor, who 
 succumbed as readily to the flash of her dark eyes 
 and the voluptuous appeal of her figure as if it was 
 his first conquest. Nor was there any need of 
 imperious wooing here ; for Eleonore was no coy 
 damsel, with ramparts of prudery to be stormed. 
 She was frankly proud of her quick triumph and 
 made no demur when the Emperor invited her to 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 31 
 
 the Tuileries, where, we learn, "it soon became 
 her habit to spend two or three hours at a time." 
 Only one barrier remained in her path to her illicit 
 queendom — ^her rascally husband ; and he must 
 be got rid of. Divorce was an easy matter, with a 
 husband wearing convict's uniform — ^he was under- 
 going a sentence of two years' imprisonment — and 
 one April day, in 1806, Eleonore was a free woman, 
 with an Emperor at her feet. Before the year 
 was out the church register recorded the birth 
 of "Leon, son of Eleonore D6nuelle, spinster, of 
 independent means and of an unknown father." 
 
 Whatever might be the paternity of Madame 
 * * *'s child, there could be no doubt of Leon's. 
 The child was a Bonaparte to his finger-tips. 
 Napoleon himself in miniature ; and no father ever 
 greeted an infant more joyfully than the man to 
 whom Leon owed his being. Here at last was 
 proof unimpeachable that, if there was no heir to 
 his crown, the fault was not his ; and it is claimed 
 that it was the birth of this nameless boy that 
 finally determined Napoleon to divorce his childless 
 Empress and seek a new alliance which should at 
 least make the succession sure. 
 
 Napoleon's passion for the mother appears to 
 have died with the birth of her son, for she makes 
 few appearances in later records, and never as 
 mistress. He even refused to see her when she 
 sought audience with him, at Fontainebleau, but 
 
32 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 a few months after she became a mother ; and a 
 pension of twenty-two thousand Uvres in the follow- 
 ing year marks the close of her chapter of romance. 
 But if Eleonore was thus relegated to obscurity, 
 the Emperor's favour was but transferred to her 
 child and his. 
 
 Before he had left his nursery under the roof of 
 Madame Loir rich gifts began to pour on Leon, in 
 additixjn to the provision Napoleon had made for 
 him at birth. Now it is a present of twelve thousand 
 livres ; now shares of the value of one hundred 
 thousand francs ; while by a codicil to his will he 
 leaves him a third of a million francs, with in- 
 structions that they should be spent in purchasing 
 an estate for him. Further he adds, as proof of 
 his solicitude for the child of the bar-sinister, " I 
 should like the little Leon to enter the magistrature, 
 should his inclinations lie in that direction." Much 
 more ambitious schemes for his protege soon entered 
 the Emperor's head. Why should he not make him 
 heir to his throne ? There were precedents for 
 such a course in the history of his royal predecessors, 
 and by this means he could avoid his contemplated 
 divorce from Josephine, to whom he was still 
 sincerely attached. 
 
 But this was a step which even the dictator of 
 Europe shrank from. He dreaded the storm of 
 disapproval which it was almost sure to evoke ; 
 and after arming himself with precedents and 
 
AN IMPERIAL WOOER 33 
 
 justifications he abandoned the idea — and 
 Josephine's fate was sealed. But though he could 
 not make his natural son an emperor, he gave him 
 aU a father's affection. " He often sent for him 
 to the Elysee, or even the Tuileries, while he was 
 dressing or breakfasting, and would play with him, 
 and give him sweetmeats, amused by his Hvely 
 prattle." 
 
 Leon, however, was not long destined to be a 
 source of pleasure to his Imperial father. As a 
 youth he won an unenviable notoriety by his loose 
 hviag ; he was a gambler and debauchee before 
 he had left his 'teens behind him ; and at twenty- 
 five he had squandered his patrimony. His later 
 Ufe can only be explained on the ground of insanity. 
 He made himself dreaded by his swash-buckhng 
 airs ; ridiculous by his swaggering and his boastful 
 references to the " great man to whom I owe my 
 existence " ; and he developed a mania for litiga- 
 tion which made him the laughing-stock of Paris. 
 In his swollen conceit he even had the assurance 
 to offer himself as candidate for the presidency 
 against Prince Louis Napoleon, styhng himself 
 in his manifestos, " the Comte Leon, son of the 
 Emperor Napoleon." 
 
 Thus he drifted through life — ^lawsuits and duels 
 following each other in endless succession ; em- 
 barking on wild and often fraudulent schemes to 
 put money into his empty purse ; and appeahng six 
 
34 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 times successfully to the republic to pay his 
 mountain of debts — ^until, his reason completely 
 gone, he died at Pontoise one April day in 1881, 
 having survived his father, the Emperor, no less 
 than sixty years. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 
 
 When Madame de Chateauroux died in the arms 
 of the rival she had so craelly wronged, Louis XV. 
 was disconsolate. Three of the lovely de Nesle 
 sisters had in turn ministered to his pleasure ; and 
 when the last of them was snatched from him at 
 the very zenith of her charms, he looked in vain 
 for solace and a successor. 
 
 The transient amours which had once served to 
 distract his senses no longer held any fascination 
 for him. He was sated with fugitive pleasures 
 which failed to satisfy the essential man in him. 
 As for his queen, the unhappy Marie Leczinska, 
 he had long grown weary of her long face and her 
 nun-like asceticism. Prematurely aged and soured, 
 she shut herself up in her apartments, leaving them 
 only for state occasions and errands of charity. 
 Surrounded by a dissolute and frivolous Court, 
 she spent her days in prayers and masses and at 
 her embroidery frame. She had even abandoned 
 the viol and guitar which in her early days as 
 queen had brought a little brightness into her 
 life, and her only relaxation was to spend her 
 evenings in the somnolent company of the 
 
 35 
 
36 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Duchesse de Luynes and a few serious-minded 
 ladies, discussing religion and death, which always 
 held a strange fascination for her. 
 
 From the sighs and mute reproaches of a wife 
 with whom he had no single taste in common, 
 Louis fled id seek distraction wherever he could 
 find it ; but among all the fair and frail women of 
 his Court he could find none to fill his life and 
 banish the ennui that consumed him, like the 
 woman who, after a few hours of terrible suffer- 
 ing, had been snatched from him just when she 
 was most indispensable. 
 
 While Madame de Chateauroux was still queen- 
 ing it at Versailles and Fontainebleau, the un- 
 crowned Queen of France, all Paris was raving 
 over the beauty and charms of a young bride who 
 was taking all hearts by storm. Never, if reports 
 were to be credited, had such a paragon of all 
 female perfections been seen. She had, de Gon- 
 court tells us, magnificent hair, ravishing teeth 
 and the most delicious smile, which stamped upon 
 her cheeks two bewitching dimples. Her figure, 
 rounded but not large, curved admirably ; her 
 perfect hands, the play of gesture from all her 
 vivacious, passionate body, and above all, a mobile, 
 varying physiognomy, marvellously animated, 
 which displayed in turn a moved or imperious 
 tenderness, noble seriousness or wanton graces. 
 
 And these physical attractions, rare as they 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 37 
 
 were, were but a small part of the fascinations of 
 this incomparable woman who dazzled the eyes 
 and senses of Paris. She was gifted with a voice 
 of such purity and sweetness as would alone have 
 made her a queen ; she played the clavicorde as 
 none other could play it ; her dancing was the 
 very poetry of motion ; she was, by common 
 consent, the most graceful and skilful rider in all 
 Paris ; she had a brilliant wit, and gifts of acting 
 which would have made her fortune on the stage ; 
 and she had, moreover, a genius for dress which 
 no other woman could even approach. 
 
 Such — and the description appears not to have 
 erred on the side of extravagance — was Madame 
 d'Etioles, when as a bride she took Paris by storm 
 in the year 1741. Of her earher history there 
 were jealous tongues only too ready to tell the 
 tale. Before her fortunate marriage she was 
 known to a different world as Mademoiselle Poisson, 
 who had for father a minor official of the Commis- 
 sariat, whose speculations had ended in dismissal 
 and disgrace. Her mother's repute was even 
 worse ; for Madame Poisson, taking advantage of 
 her husband's enforced absence, had, for some 
 time before her daughter's birth, been playing 
 the role of mistress to M. de Toumehem, a wealthy 
 contractor, who, perhaps not unnaturally, made 
 himself responsible for the education of Mademoi- 
 selle when she came on the scene. 
 
38 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Thus it was that the reputed daughter of the 
 disgraced Poisson was taught singing by Jeliette 
 and dancing by Guibaudet, and that a small fortune 
 was lavished on equipping her with all the accom- 
 plishments with which she was later to dazzle the 
 world. And when M. d'Etioles, the complaisant 
 contractor's nephew, appeared among Mademoi- 
 selle's many lovers, it was M. de Tournehem who 
 arranged the match for his nephew and gave the 
 bride half his fortune as dower. 
 
 That Mademoiselle's wishes were not consulted 
 did not trouble her in the least. The husband 
 Fate had assigned to her was short and fat and 
 ugly, a bourgeois to his finger-tips. He was, and 
 she made no secret of it, repulsive to her ; but 
 he would serve her purpose as well as any 
 other. He would provide her with the luxuries 
 she loved, and with gold to deck her beauty for 
 the conquest which was the one ambition of her 
 life. 
 
 Years earher, when she was a child of nine, a 
 fortune-teller had told Madame Poisson that her 
 daughter would one day be the mistress of Louis 
 XV. ; and the mother had never for a moment lost 
 sight of this brilliant prospect. With this object 
 her daughter was trained ; the duty and the 
 splendour of it was instilled into her until it be- 
 came an absorbing dream ; and when M. d'Etioles 
 offered her his hand, she accepted it, as she would 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 89 
 
 have accq)ted any other hand which Iwpught such 
 a dower to carry her towards her goal. 
 
 But between the bourgeois world of Paris and 
 the august person of the King there was a great 
 gulf to be bridged. If she could not win the entree 
 to the Court, there was at least no difficulty in 
 letting the King see her. He would be no man if 
 he could resist the appeal of a beauty which made 
 so quick a conquest of other men. Thus it was 
 that when Louis went hunting in the forest of 
 S6nart, Madame was there in her most ravishing 
 costume, promenading under his very eyes, flutter- 
 ing her fan and practising all her coquetries. 
 " She passes and repasses in the midst of the 
 horses, dogs and royal escort, like some light and 
 alluring Diana, now clad in azure, in a rose- 
 coloured phaeton ; now in an azure-coloured 
 phaeton, clad in rose. The King looked at her, 
 remarked her, and took a pleasure in the hand- 
 some equipage which set the Court a-talking." 
 
 But there were jealous eyes watching the 
 artifices of the seductive stranger. Madame de 
 Chateauroux was ever by Louis' side to keep all 
 would-be rivals at bay ; and Madame d'Etioles 
 was soon given to understand that her presence 
 at the Royal Hunt was not desirable . But Madame 
 merely smiled at the rebuff. She could afford to 
 wait. And the forest of Senart saw her rainbow 
 phaetons and costumes no more, until the Ducliesse 
 
40 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 was no longer there to cast baleful eyes on 
 her. 
 
 Then at last her opportunity came ; and she 
 was quick to take advantage of it. At a great 
 masked ball in the Hotel de Ville, Louis was 
 attracted by a charming mask, " who tormented 
 him by a thousand provocations, a thousand 
 pretty saj^ings. At the King's entreaty the domino 
 consented to unmask, and the handkerchief which 
 Madame d'Etioles dropped, as though by accident, 
 was picked up by Louis, to the accompaniment of 
 a murmur amongst the company, ' The handker- 
 chief has been thrown.' " 
 
 But still, although Louis' curiosity was piqued 
 by the reappearance of the fair stranger of the 
 forest his heart appears to have been untouched. 
 Some days after this adventure he was confiding 
 to his valet, Benet, his disgust with the fugitive 
 amours which were now his only distraction — 
 with such lights o' love as the Duchesse de Roche- 
 chouart, and Madame de Popelini^re — and was be- 
 moaning the fate which had removed his beloved 
 Chateauroux. " Ah, Sire," said Benet, " you need 
 no longer bemoan the Duchesse 's loss. I know a 
 lady who can be all, and more to your Majesty than 
 ever she was ; a lady of still greater beauty, who, 
 moreover, has been your Majesty's mute worshipper 
 from childhood." Then he reminded Louis of 
 the lovely stranger of the forest and the masked 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 41 
 
 ball, and spoke so glowingly of her charms and 
 her gifts that the King authorised him to make 
 an appointment with her. 
 
 Of this first momentous meeting of the King and 
 Madame d'Etioles, history tells us nothing. Its 
 effects, however, were immediate. The Dauphin 
 was in arms at once and showed his displeasure 
 by forbidding the Dauphine to appear any longer 
 in the private apartments. It was one thing to 
 make a mistress of a lady of birth like the Duchesse 
 de Chateauroux, but this dallying with a " trades- 
 man's" daughter of discreditable antecedents 
 was an outrage. Louis, however, only smiled at 
 his son's disapproval, little reaUsing that it was 
 but the first rumbling of a storm of resentment that 
 was soon to break ; and within a month Madame 
 d'Etioles was supping in his private apartments, 
 £is a prelude to spending the night as his guest. 
 
 When morning came Madame professed to be 
 horrified at the prospect of returning to her hus- 
 band, who, she declared, was roused to such a fury 
 of jealousy that her life was not safe ; and she 
 implored the King to shield her — ^to allow her to 
 remain perdue for a time at the palace. Then it 
 was that she coaxed from Louis, by caresses and 
 tears, a promise to give her a lodging near him, 
 to acknowledge her as his mistress, and to banish 
 her husband. Thus at last, by her patience and 
 coquetries, Madame d'Etioles arrived at the goal 
 
42 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 of her ambition, and realised the fortune-teller's 
 prediction that she would become the mistress of 
 Louis XV. 
 
 Thus established at Court, Madame's conquest 
 over the King was assured. He was intoxicated 
 by her beauty, fascinated by her gifts and graces. 
 Even Madame de Chateauroux was forgotten in 
 the ardour of the new passion that possessed him. 
 When he was called away to war, we are told, he 
 wrote eighty love letters to her in the space of two 
 months ; and, immediately on his return, she was 
 formally installed as maitresse en titre in the pre- 
 sence of his Court, with the Princesse de Conti for 
 chaperon. So cleverly had she used her oppor- 
 tunities during Louis' absence that she had won 
 the favour of his prudish queen ; and while the 
 Dauphin was scowling at the interloping bourgeoise 
 his royal mother was smiling her sweetest on her 
 husband's new mistress. 
 
 But while the King was her veriest slave, and 
 while she basked in the Queen's smiles, she was 
 quick to realise that she was surrounded by 
 enemies determined to dethrone the " Grisette," the 
 " Petite Bourgeoise " (for by such contemptuous 
 names they called her) who had dared to aspire to a 
 king. Every movement was watched by jealous 
 eyes ; every word she uttered was Ustened to by 
 jealous ears, and turned to ridicule. This par- 
 venue might queen it in middle-class drawing- 
 
.^AiaJaymS' ^ ^/m7^um^/^^y. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 43 
 
 rooms, but in a Royal Court she was as much out 
 of her natural element as a fish out of water ; and 
 her constant breaches of etiquette furnished 
 delicious food for the scoffers, who did not scruple 
 to mimic her to her face. When, however, they 
 sought to draw the King into their amusement, his 
 only answer was, " It is an education which it will 
 amuse me to complete." 
 
 Although Madame could afford to smile at such 
 impotent jealousies, she saw clearly the menace of 
 some of the enmities she had innocently aroused. 
 Madame de Lauraguais, whom she had supplanted 
 in the King's favour, was a dangerous enemy 
 indeed, with her witty tongue, her genius for 
 mimicry and her army of friends at Court. Even 
 more dangerous was Maurepas, Louis' great 
 minister, who threw the Court into convulsions 
 by caricaturing her airs, her walk, her speech, 
 until the King himself could not restrain-- his 
 laughter. And Richelieu, who had been in the 
 habit of choosing Louis' mistresses, made so little 
 concealment of his ill-will that even at the royal 
 supper-table he missed no opportunity of mimick- 
 ing and insulting her. 
 
 And where the great ones of the Court led the 
 way, the populace was quick to follow. Paris was 
 flooded with songs and Poissonades, full of in- 
 decencies and scandalous references to the birth 
 and early history of the new favourite. Never 
 
44 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 was a king's mistress faced by such a tempest of 
 obloquy and hatred. But Madame, the Marquise 
 de Pompadour (as she had thus early become), 
 was no woman to bow before any tempest. She 
 had a courage to match her charms ; and she 
 bravely set herself to defy and subdue the storm 
 that raged round her head. 
 
 By adroit diplomacy she won one champion to 
 her side after another. The Prince de Conti she 
 won by promises to arrange a marriage between 
 his son and Madame Adelaide ; she made stalwart 
 supporters of the brothers Paris, the Noailles and 
 other great financiers who supplied the gold for 
 Louis' wars, and were the money kings of France. 
 Among the ministers she drew to her side the 
 Marquis de Puysieux and the Due de Saint 
 Severin; and she brought her charms so effectually 
 to bear on RicheUeu himself that, from being her 
 most malevolent enemy, he became one of her 
 staunchest allies. 
 
 Thus by smiles and bribes and clever diplomacy 
 the Marquise gradually surrounded herself with 
 a small army of friends strong enough to protect 
 her against the enmities and jealousies of the 
 Court, until, with the King at her feet, she could 
 afford to smile at them. Her position at least was 
 secure ; it only remained to get Louis himself still 
 deeper into her toils ; and this, for a woman of 
 such fascinations and such consummate cleverness. 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 45 
 
 was no difficult task. It was imperative, if she 
 was to retain her hold on him, that she should 
 never allow ennui to come near him. Ennui was 
 the bane of Louis' life, which pursued him to his 
 last day ; and " she had the genius, the patience 
 and the wit to caress, alleviate and amuse his 
 malady." 
 
 She assumed complete control of his life, de- 
 prived every hour of its monotony, left him no 
 moment which she did not fill with entertainment 
 and pleasure. Even when he was interviewing 
 ministets and ambassadors she sat by his side, 
 and at the first yawn brought the interview to 
 an abrupt conclusion. She sang to him, played 
 to him, kept him in a ripple of laughter with her 
 droU stories and mimicries, provided him with a 
 constant succession of diversions ; and, when these 
 failed, kept him in a hurricane of movement from 
 one place to another, which left no moment 
 to relapse into his normal gloom. Louis was 
 enraptured with his wonderful new plaything. 
 He had never enjoyed life so much, even in the 
 palmiest days of Vintimille and Chateauroux. 
 
 And still Madame de Pompadour's resources 
 were by no means exhausted. There was, for 
 instance, the theatre, where her gifts reached their 
 splendid climax. Louis had not seen her act. 
 He must provide a stage for her, and she would 
 reveal a new world to him. The King was like a 
 
46 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 child with a new toy. He spent weeks of feverish 
 delight in planning the " Theatre des Petits 
 Cabinets " in his private apartments, and watching 
 it grow into splendid existence, with all its marvels 
 of decoration and costumes — " silk stockings that 
 cost fifteen livres, 222 costumes for men, 153 
 costumes for women, and brocades, tissues, em- 
 broideries, braids and tassels of gold and silver." 
 
 Never was theatre more gorgeously equipped ; 
 and never did high-placed personages so scramble 
 for the honour of playing the meanest part. The 
 Marquise had at last come to her true queendom ; 
 for she was supreme among actresses as she was 
 the fairest among fair women. " In comedy she 
 found a field for her vivacity, her subtlety, the 
 art of diction and the spirit of breeding. In opera 
 she revealed all the caresses and enchantments of 
 her voice. A singer and a comedienne, a Grace 
 with two faces, it seemed as though two muses 
 had been sponsors to the cradle of this spoilt child 
 of the eighteenth century ; the Muse of Song, the 
 Muse of Smiles." 
 
 These were beyond question Madame de Pom- 
 padour's happiest years, when, day after day, she 
 was bewitching not only the King her lover, but 
 her very enemies in his Court, by her grace and 
 beauty and the magic of her acting. Now, de 
 Goncourt tells us, she appeared as a peasant in a 
 skirt of blue taffetas round which fluttered flimsies 
 
THE TRIUMPH OF A FAVOURITE 47 
 
 of gauze ; now as a prince of Greece in armour of 
 puffed golden gauze, adorned with waving plumes. 
 Now, in some Eastern role, she wore " a dolman of 
 cherry-coloured satin, bordered with ermine, with 
 a petticoat of blue satin embroidered in gold ; or 
 a petticoat of rose taffetas set about with silver, 
 the drapery and mantle stamped with silver and 
 vari-coloured flowers " ; again she was Galatea in 
 a naiad's dress, Venus in a costume of silver and 
 blue, " sweeping with the majesty of a royal 
 mantle a huge train of blue with a mosaic of silver." 
 And in every character, peasant or naiad, Venus 
 or Herminia, she was equally ravishing, dazzHng 
 aU eyes and charming all senses. 
 
 As for Loviis, he was in the seventh heaven of 
 delight at this triumph of his low-bom favourite, 
 who had thus won sovereignty for herself against 
 the enmity of his Court. She was bom to be a 
 queen in spite of the obscurity and shame of her 
 cradhng, and a queen she should be. She was 
 installed in the royal apartment of the Montespan 
 at Versailles ; while she was seated, the greatest 
 courtiers must stand ; her equipages bore the velvet 
 cap and ducal mantle on their shield of arms ; and 
 a due was proud to bear her train. Her retinue 
 was more costly and splendid than that of the 
 Queen herself ; and with the gold her infatuated 
 lover provided, she purchased estate after estate, 
 until she was the richest woman in all France. 
 
48 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Castles and palaces and far-spreading lands were 
 hers, from the Evreux mansion in the Champs 
 Elysees, for which she paid five hundred thousand 
 livres, to vast domains at Cr6cy, D'Aubney and 
 Saint Remy. On Crecy and D'Aubney alone she 
 squandered four million livres, and into Bellevue 
 she poured two and a half million livres of Louis' 
 gold. Thirty-six million livres were spent in in- 
 vesting her palaces and estates with every luxury 
 and enrichment of art which money could pur- 
 chase. 
 
 Thus triumphantly did the " Grisette," the 
 " tradesman's daughter," reach the pinnacle of 
 splendour and power which was to be hers until 
 that last hour, in 1764, when, with her dying 
 breath, she said to the cure who was leaving her 
 room, " One moment. Monsieur le Cure, we will go 
 together." Thus, holding her sceptre until it fell 
 from her lifeless hands, died the most amazing 
 woman who has ever held a king in thrall by the 
 magic of her charms. 
 
 And, the irony of it all ! Before Madame de 
 Pompadour's body was cold, Louis' queen was 
 writing to the President Renault : " However, 
 there is no more question here of that which is no 
 more than if she had never existed. Such is the 
 world ! " 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 A MAGDALENE OF THE i8tH CENTURY 
 
 " Ah, les beaux jours ! Ah, les beaux jours ! " 
 whispered Sophie Arnould as she lay dying, old and 
 destitute and shorn of the last vestige of the beauty 
 that had for so long held Paris in thrall ; and the 
 vision of those golden. days of her triumph trans- 
 figured for one last moment the face on which 
 sorrow and suffering had laid defacing hands. 
 
 More than sixty years earlier the woman who 
 had been the scandal and delight of her age was 
 cradled on St Valentine's Day, a fitting birthday 
 for one who was to live for Love ; and at the 
 baptismal font she had been named Magdalene 
 (Sophie) in unconscious prevision of the role she 
 was destined to play in life. There was nothing in 
 her ancestry to mark her out for such a romantic, 
 splendid and shameless career as was hers. Her 
 father was a retired tradesman, staid and unsenti- 
 mental to the last degree, proud of his business 
 success and the small fortune it had brought. Her 
 mother was a tradesman's daughter from Blois, 
 whose mind ran to social ambition and the 
 cultivation of men of letters. 
 D 49 
 
50 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 She loved to draw to her bourgeois salon the 
 intellectuals of her time; to sit, a humble wor- 
 shipper, at the feet of Voltaire, and to bask in th€ 
 wit of d'Alembert, Diderot and Fontenelle as they 
 feasted and made merry at her hospitable table. 
 The child of such respectable, commonplace parents 
 should have been a model of all the proprieties, 
 with no ambition other thati to follow in their staid 
 footsteps. 
 
 But capricious Fate had other and very different 
 designs for her. Before she had emerged from the 
 nursery it was clear to all that Sophie was no 
 ordinary child and that she promised to become an 
 extraordinary woman. She seems to have been a 
 prodigy almost from her cradle. At four, we are 
 told, she was able to read the most difficult books, 
 and amazed all by her wit and intelUgence. At 
 seven she was an expert musician, with the voice of 
 a nightingale. She was, too, bewilderingly pretty, 
 with a winsomeness that made everyone her slave. 
 " Madame," said Voltaire one day to Madame 
 Amould, deHghted by the witty repartees of the 
 seven-year-old Sophie, " I foresee that this little 
 lady will be a very remarkable woman." " I hope. 
 Monsieur," Madame answered, " she will be a good 
 one ; that will please me better." 
 
 When the Princesse de Conti called one day, 
 drawn by curiosity to see this wonder-child, she 
 was so fascinated by Sophie's prettiness and clever 
 
't^.^cAie .J^rfUJ/^/j. 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 51 
 
 tongue that she exclaimed in delight : " What a 
 perfect darUng ! Do let me have her, madame ! 
 I wiU take the greatest care of her." The trades- 
 man's wife, flattered by such an offer from a royal 
 lady, consented ; and Sophie found herself trans- 
 ported to an exalted sphere, in which she became 
 the pet and plaything of the greatest in the land. 
 Her education was entrusted to the most eminent 
 professors in Paris ; and, under Mademoiselle Pel's 
 sMlful teaching, her voice developed such a rare 
 quahty that soon all Paris was talking of the " Uttle 
 girl with the voice of an angel." 
 
 Thus the happy years passed for the spoiled child 
 of Fortune, imtil, when she had barely passed her 
 sixteenth birthday, her opportunity came, and 
 with it a complete revolution in her hfe. The 
 vocalist who was to sing Tenebrae at a great festival 
 at the Convent of Panthemont failed to appear. 
 The abbess was in despair, as there was no time to 
 procure a substitute . Then, in a moment of inspira- 
 tion, the Princesse de Conti had a happy idea. 
 Why should not her protegee take the missing 
 singer's place ? The abbess was doubtful ; the girl 
 was too young to undertake such a task. But at 
 least she was better than no one. And a few 
 minutes later the beautiful voice was flooding the 
 church with a sweetness and poignancy that sent 
 a thrill through every worshipper and brought 
 tears to many eyes . Sophie's triumph was complete. 
 
52 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 On Good Friday " more than two hundred 
 carriages had to be turned away from the Convent 
 Church." All Paris was flocking to hear the 
 " Angel with the Celestial voice." 
 
 The news of this wonderful singer was quick to 
 reach the Court ; Marie Leczinska, Louis' neglected 
 queen, was full of curiosity to see and hear the girl 
 whose voice had such a magic in it to melt hearts. 
 The Princesse must bring her protegee to Court ; 
 and soon Sophie's voice was casting its spell over 
 the Queen of France, who was exclaiming enthusi- 
 astically to the Princesse : " I want her. You really 
 must let me have her." The following day another 
 summons came from Versailles. This time it was 
 Madame de Pompadour, the King's mistress, who 
 wanted to hear the prodigy. Again the journey 
 was made, and again the golden voice rang out in 
 the royal palace, while the Pompadour hstened 
 enraptured, tears brimming in her eyes. 
 
 A few days later Sophie received two letters : one 
 appointing her singer to the Queen, the second 
 appointing her to the King's music, and particularly 
 to his theatre of the opera. Here indeed was a 
 dilemma. How was she to choose between the 
 Queen and the King ? To offend the latter was to 
 offend the Pompadour, who was more powerful than 
 either King or Queen, and of the two courses Sophie, 
 advised by the Princesse, chose the safer ; in spite 
 of her mother's tears and pleadings that she would 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 53 
 
 not go on the stage. In vain Madame Amould 
 besought one abbess after another to give sanctuary 
 to her daughter, to rescue her from such a terrible 
 fate. None of them all dared to offend the King — 
 and his uncrowned queen ; and one December day 
 in 1757 Sophie made her debut on the stage of the 
 opera amid a tumult of applause led by Louis and 
 the Pompadour. A moment later a hush of en- 
 chantment fell on the audience, as the first words, 
 so singularly appropriate, fell on the ear, in notes 
 pure and sweet as the song of the nightingale, 
 " Charmant amour, 5a porte bonheur." 
 
 The hour of triumph had come for the tradesman's 
 daughter. The whole world of Paris was at her 
 feet, entranced by the charm of her beauty and the 
 glory of her voice with its blending of sweetness and 
 poignancy. Her beauty was now in its first fragrant 
 bloom. Her face of a perfect oval was illuminated 
 by a pair of glorious eyes — ^flashing with flame, 
 dancing with mischief and laughter, or melting 
 into a tender wistfulness as mood succeeded mood. 
 Eyelids exquisitely narrowed at the comers, eye- 
 brows sweeping like the wings of a distant bird, 
 a nose daintily modelled, the scarlet of sweetly 
 curved lips, and a crown of luxuriant hair, black as 
 night, complete the face as we see it pictured by 
 La Tour. Her figure was slight, with grace in 
 every line and poetry in every movement ; while 
 she herself said, " I have a well-made leg, a pretty 
 
54 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 foot, and arms and hands good enough for a 
 painter's model." 
 
 But even such charms as these had to yield place 
 to that wonderful voice, which had in it " cries and 
 tears and sighs and sad caresses ; she could make 
 her audience shiver. It was the voice of Psyche in 
 Hades, of Agamemnon's daughter searching for the 
 lost Achilles ; of Iphigenia dragged to the altar." 
 
 Seldom has woman been so seductively dowered 
 for the conquest of man. Seldom has she so frankly 
 made this conquest the great object of her life. 
 As a child she startled Fontenelle one day by 
 saying, " Love is the only thing worth living for. 
 Don't you think so, Monsieur ? " And almost 
 before she emerged from short frocks she had at 
 least one lover, in Malezieux, a notorious dandy and 
 rake, who was the infatuated slave of the school- 
 girl, writing sonnets to her beaux yeux and following 
 her like a shadow. 
 
 But while Paris was at the feet of his brilliant 
 daughter Monsieur Arnould was drifting into evil 
 days. His small fortune was lost in speculation ; 
 bankruptcy followed ; and he found himself com- 
 pelled to earn a modest livelihood by taking lodgers 
 at " thirty sous a night." One day there came to 
 the Arnould pension a young man from the country 
 who brought to Paris a play for acceptance. That 
 he was no down-at-heels author was clear from the 
 richness of his dress ; while his aristocratic bearing 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 55 
 
 proclaimed that he was of no obscure birth. The 
 handsome young author was quick to ingratiate 
 himself into the favour of his host and hostess, who 
 were flattered by his deference and charmed by his 
 conversation. To their beautiful daughter, with 
 whose fame Paris was ringing, he appeared to pay 
 small attention. 
 
 Thus a few weeks passed pleasantly. Then one 
 morning Madame Amould awoke to the discovery 
 that her pretty bird had flown — and the good- 
 looking stranger also. A few hours later a lackey 
 in gorgeoixs livery appeared, bearing a note signed 
 Louis, Comte de Brancas : " Madame, I am 
 ashamed to inform you that I have repaid your 
 amiable hospitality by running away with your 
 daughter. ... I am, alas, a married man, but as 
 soon as I am a widower, I promise you solemnly 
 that I will marry her." 
 
 What could Madame do ? Tears and pleadings 
 were ahke useless to recall a step so fatal to her 
 daughter's fair fame. She had been shamefully 
 deceived by the unprincipled Comte, who mas- 
 queraded as an author to steal her treasure from 
 her. But after all he was a Comte, and would some 
 day be Due de Lauraguais on his father's death ; 
 and he had promised marriage — all the reparation 
 he could now make. So, drying her eyes, she 
 sought the runaways, took them to her arms and 
 gave them a tearful blessing. 
 
56 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " Monsieur de Lauraguais," Sophie used to say 
 in later years, " has given me two million kisses, 
 but he has made me shed two miUion tears." The 
 life that followed that midnight elopement was 
 a sandwich of heaven and — ^the other place, love- 
 making alternating with jealousies and quarrels, 
 until at last Sophie, wearied of it all, one day 
 packed up her lover's presents and sent them in a 
 carriage, with their two children, to the Due's wife, 
 who promptly sent them back again, retaining the 
 children. 
 
 But, if the ducal playwright had his conge, 
 Sophie had no lack of successors . Monsieur Bertin, 
 a wealthy rou6, was quick to step into Lauraguais' 
 shoes. He lavished fortunes on his mistress ; and 
 his reward was that he in turn had to give place to 
 a successor — ^this time none other than Sophie's 
 hairdresser, one Lacroix, with whom, we are told, 
 " she used to walk about on Sundays, like a Uttle 
 milliner, radiant and elated." Due, Croesus, 
 hairdresser ! Thus the lovers followed one another 
 in incongruous succession. And while the actress 
 was dallying with the hairdresser, his two rivals 
 were fighting a duel over the woman who was 
 weary of both. 
 
 Lacroix, however, ami de cceur though he was, 
 had no long supremacy, for within a few weeks we 
 find him sharing his lady's favours with Prince 
 d'H6nin, prince and hairdresser vying with each 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 57 
 
 other as to who should run errands for their joint 
 mistress ! But both d'Henin and Lacroix soon 
 proved far too dull lovers for Sophie, who had a 
 very sprightly wit of her own and demanded 
 wit in her slaves ; and it was not long before de 
 Lauraguais, whose clever tongue at least kept her 
 amused, was restored to full favour. 
 
 Of Sophie Arnould's gift of epigram and repartee 
 many brilliant examples have come down to us, 
 which enable us to understand that, while the men 
 idolised her she could be a terror to her own sex. 
 Of Mademoiselle Guimard, the most graceful 
 dancer of her time, and also the thinnest, she once 
 said, " I never see her dancing a pas de trois with 
 the men without being reminded of two dogs 
 fighting for a bone . ' ' And when a lady of uncertain 
 age remarked, " What a dreadful thing it is to be 
 approaching forty," she retorted, " Yes ; but that 
 need not trouble you, for every day is taking you 
 farther from it." 
 
 One day a lady of the Court exclaimed in her 
 hearing, " What a pity it is that there is not some 
 badge which decent women could wear to distin- 
 guish them from the ' creatures,' " with a scornful 
 glance towards the actress. " Ah, Madame," came 
 the swift answer from Sophie, " you should not wish 
 that ; for then the ' creatures ' would be able to 
 count you." " What are you doing ? " she asked 
 once of Bernard, the poet, whom she found lying 
 
58 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 under a tree. " I am talking to myself," lazily 
 answered the poet. " Take care then," said 
 Sophie, with a laugh, " for you are talking to 
 a flatterer ! " 
 
 Very crushing was her retort to Mademoiselle 
 Heinal, a lady who was her rival in the affection of 
 the Due de Lauraguais, when she complained that 
 some person had spoken of her as a catin. " Ah ! " 
 said Sophie in accents of sympathy, " people are 
 so rude nowadays ; they call things by their right 
 names." But perhaps the most effective of her 
 many retorts was that administered to a poUce 
 official. Monsieur Sartines, who was sent to examine 
 her on the subject of a supper, at which she had 
 been present, when scandalous stories were told of 
 the Pompadour. To all his inquiries Sophie gave 
 evasive answers ; she professed not to be able to 
 remember. At last the baffled official broke out 
 angrily, " It seems to me that a woman like you 
 would probably remember things of that sort." 
 " Yes," answered Madame, with her sweetest 
 smile ; " but, before a man like you I am not a 
 woman like me." 
 
 For more than twenty years Sophie was the idol 
 of Paris, absolute Queen of the Opera as of the hearts 
 of men. Her days were crowded with gaiety and 
 the homage of all the greatest in France. One 
 triumph succeeded another, until it seemed that 
 the beaux jours of her reign would never come 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 59 
 
 to an end. Each character she assumed in opera 
 was declared more brilHant than its predecessors ; 
 Rameau and Gluck and all the great composers of 
 her day were among her most ardent worshippers ; 
 her legion of lovers surrounded her with luxuries 
 a queen might have envied. 
 
 Never did woman drink more deeply or with a 
 keener zest of the cup of pleasure, or was more 
 disdainful of its dregs. When she was within sight 
 of her fortieth year she seemed but at the zenith of 
 her career, with many long years of queendom 
 before her. But the end was near, and it came with 
 dramatic suddenness. Her too-caustic tongue had 
 made an enemy of Gluck at last ; and when Alceste 
 was produced in 1778 the principal part was given, 
 not to her, but to her rival, RosaUe Levasseur. 
 Her sceptre was taken from her ; and her dethrone- 
 ment was swift to follow. 
 
 The fickle populace, whose idol she had so long 
 been, began to look coldly on her. Their cheers 
 gave place to silence, and then to ominous signs of 
 disapproval. The chmax was reached one night 
 when she was singing in the opera Euthyme et Lyris, 
 when the line, " Vous brulez que je sois partie," 
 was greeted with peals of laughter and volleys of 
 ironical cheers. 
 
 Her career, she knew, was ended ; and she took 
 her dismissal with a smile on her face, whatever 
 bitterness was in her heart . She was still young and 
 
60 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 beautiful, and she could still be a queen — ^in other 
 spheres. But a short time before the curtain was 
 thus brutally rung down on her stage career she 
 had given orders for the erection of a magnificent 
 house in the Chauss6e d'Antin, which was to excel 
 in splendour any in Paris. The plans were prepared 
 by the famous architect, Belanger, her favouiite 
 of the hour, and building was about to begin. But 
 the walls of this wonder-palace were never to rise ; 
 the plans alone, which are to be seen to-day in 
 the Bibhoth^que Nationale, survive to suggest its 
 magnificence. 
 
 For a brief time she found a solace in her salon 
 and the society of the great ones who flocked to 
 it — among them Voltaire, who had nursed her a 
 generation earlier, and at eighty-four was her chief 
 " courtier." " I am eighty-four," the old man 
 said one day to his hostess, " and I have done 
 eighty-four foolish things." " Dear me ! " she cried, 
 " I am not yet forty, and I have done more than 
 a thousand." 
 
 But the chapter of her follies and her splendours 
 was now closed. The rest of her life's journey was to 
 be downhill. Riches were to give place to poverty, 
 and poverty to destitution. When she could no 
 longer afford to live in her beloved Paris she found 
 a modest refuge at Clichy; and from Clichy she 
 drifted to an old and dismantled priory at Luzarches, 
 over whose doorway she had the words, " Ite, missa 
 
A MAGDALENE OF 18TH CENTURY 61 
 
 est " inscribed in ironical reminder that her own 
 dismissal had come. 
 
 Here she spent twenty years of pathetic loneli- 
 ness, dead to the world, without friend or anyone 
 to minister to her wants. " She planted cabbages 
 and cooked them for her dinner ; she kept cocks 
 and hens, turkeys, pigs, rabbits, and pigeons, until 
 these last proved too expensive to feed." And yet 
 through all her loneliness and poverty she main- 
 tained the bright spirit that had carried her so 
 brilUantly through her years of splendour. " I 
 have not one moment's ennui," she wrote to 
 Belanger. " Nor do I think I shall know one until 
 the end comes." 
 
 The end, however, was slow to come, and the last 
 nine years of her life were of a nature to crush the 
 most buoyant spirit. To all those who had fawned 
 on and idolised her in the days of her queendom 
 she was as dead as if the earth had closed over her 
 — ^to all except her old lovers, Belanger, the archi- 
 tect, and Lauraguais, the ducal playwright of the 
 Amould pension. Both remained loyal to her to 
 the last, as she to them ; and to both she wrote 
 frequent letters, with a pathetic note of gaiety 
 and much of her old-time briUiance of wit. " How 
 sad it is to grow old," she wrote in one letter to 
 Belanger, whom she addresses " My good Angfel " ; 
 " but never mind," she continues. " At the end 
 of the ditch, the fall." 
 
62 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Lauraguais, now despoiled of his riches by the 
 Revolution, and almost as destitute as herself, 
 invited her in 1791 to come and share his poor 
 home ; but Sophie was too proud to accept the 
 charity even of such an old friend. She begged 
 him instead to come to her. " You will have to do 
 without much attendance," she wrote ; " but I will 
 do everything you want . ' ' But Lauraguais decUned 
 her offer as she had declined his, although he paid 
 her visits from time to time to talk over the days 
 when Hfe was young and Fortune was kind. 
 
 Over the sad remnant of Sophie Amould's days 
 it is well to draw the curtain of silence. They were 
 days of terrible privation, with an empty cupboard 
 and a tireless grate. Then illness came ; and then 
 the merciful end of it all. When she saw the priest 
 bending over her, pitifully watching her life ebb 
 away, she gave him one glance of gratitude and 
 whispered, " Quia multum amavit " — " because 
 she loved much." And then with her Jast breath, 
 " Ah, les beaux jours ! " as the spirit of the 
 Magdalene went to meet its Judge. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE INFATUATION OF A KING 
 
 With a few notable exceptions the kings of England 
 have set an example of clean and seemly living 
 which is in gratifying contrast to the Uves of their 
 brother-sovereigns on the Continent. With the 
 solitary exceptions of the " Merrie Monarch " and 
 the fourth George, their love affairs play but an 
 inconspicuous part in their chronicles, and they 
 have been conducted with a decorum which has 
 removed at least some of their reproach. Even 
 (jeorge I., one of the most amorous of our rulers, 
 was content to confine his favours to two women, 
 the Duchess of Kendal and my Lady DarUngton, 
 with a constancy, in the case of the former at least, 
 which has scarcely a parallel in the annals of illicit 
 love. Our royal records contain few such scandal- 
 ous stories as mar the records of almost every royal 
 line in Europe. 
 
 But although our kings have thus presented a 
 fairly decent front to the world, few if any of them 
 have escaped altogether the seductions of fair 
 women. Even George III., that model of all the 
 virtues and proprieties, lived to regret his bojdsh 
 dalljdng with Hannah Lightfoot, the pretty 
 63 
 
64 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Quakeress, who, beyond a doubt, became the 
 mother of more than one of his children ; and 
 James I., that " most tender and loving, nursing 
 father " of the Church, was, if we are to beheve 
 contemporary chronicles, not as free from this 
 frailty of the flesh as such a " sanctified person " 
 should have been. 
 
 Of all our rulers, perhaps, one would look to 
 Edward III. for an absolutely clean moral sheet ; 
 but here again disillusion awaits the searcher. In 
 the early days of his kingship this most austere 
 and ascetic of our kings was, it is said, " overmuch 
 given to loving where he was not wed " ; and the 
 secret records reveal more than one entanglement 
 which is not to his credit. There are some who 
 read into the story of the " Garter " evidence of 
 one such liaison ; but although we may say with 
 him, in relation to this incident, " Evil to him who 
 evil thinks," there is small doubt that his daughter 
 Isabel, who gave her Spanish husband the title 
 to quarter the Royal Leopards on his shield, had 
 no sanction of the wedding ring to support her 
 entry into the world. 
 
 But these were the indiscretions of hot-blooded 
 youth, of which kings have no monopoly. With 
 his wedding to his queen, Philippa of Hainault, 
 came long years of nuptial loyalty. Happy in the 
 love of a good woman, Edward proved himself as 
 unassailable by the battery of female blandishments 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 65 
 
 as he was invincible in war. The hero of Crecy 
 and Poitiers had now a more serious work in life 
 than sitting at the feet of beauty ; and when years 
 and the hardships of campaigns had cooled the 
 fever of his blood, the life of continence, which had 
 become a habit, seemed inevitable to him. 
 
 And so it would probably have been to the end 
 had not Alice Ferrers crossed his path, when he 
 was already well advanced in middle age ; and the 
 man who for a generation had been true to his 
 queen succumbed at last to the charms of a woman 
 who had neither birth nor beauty to recommend 
 her to his favour. Where this " vulgar siren " 
 sprang from, or how she came under the eyes of 
 the King no research can discover. Some assign 
 her for father an Essex tiler ; others declare that 
 she was daughter of a Devonshire weaver, and that 
 her earliest known love affair was with a semi- 
 imbecile water-carrier. There seems little doubt 
 indeed that Alice Ferrers was " a child of the 
 gutter," as base bom as Martha, the Livonian 
 scullerjmiaid, who won the heart of Feter the Great, 
 and with it the crown of Empress, or as the pretty 
 flower-seller of the Bergen market who enslaved 
 Christian, King of Denmark. 
 
 Attempts have been made to provide her at least 
 with gentle birth, for there were Ferrers of social 
 standing in her time. There was a Norfolk squire 
 of the name who had for wife a daughter of Sir 
 
66 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Thomas Ormsby ; and there was a Sir Richard 
 Ferrers, who rode to Westminster as Knight of the 
 Shire for Hertford and lived to be an outlaw. She 
 may have had either of these respectable Ferrers 
 for father, say those who object to the weaver and 
 tiler parentage ; but no scrap of evidence supports 
 such pretensions. 
 
 That Alice was of low origin all we learn of her 
 goes to prove. She was coarse-featured and coarse- 
 mannered, with no trace of breeding in mind or 
 body. She had the toil-hardened hands and red 
 arms of Martha, the scuUerymaid ; and such 
 charms as she could lay claim to for the conquest of 
 man were an opulent bust, red ripe lips, bold eyes, 
 an abounding vitality and an unfailing flow of 
 animal spirits. Such was the coarse battery she 
 brought to bear on the King who had for so 
 long successfully resisted the allurements of the 
 most beautiful and gently bred women of his 
 Court. 
 
 How AHce Ferrers ever found her way to the 
 circle of the Court must ever remain a mystery. 
 That she had bridged the gulf which separates the 
 hovel from the palace by the year 1366 we know ; 
 for she figures in the records of that year as receiv- 
 ing two tuns of wine from the royal cellars, a strange 
 present for any young woman ; and she was picking 
 and choosing her presents from the royal wardrobe 
 — ^rich gowns of silk and furs of ermine and miniver. 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 67 
 
 She was already installed in high favour with 
 Edward ; and the tongues of the Court ladies were 
 gossiping of secret meetings between the King and 
 the buxom young woman who had found her way 
 so mysteriously to the Court. 
 
 What Queen Philippa thought of this strange 
 defection of her husband after so many years of 
 unswerving devotion to herself, no records tell us. 
 That she must have known of the vulgar liaison is 
 reasonably certain ; for, however secretly it was 
 conducted, before long not only London, but every 
 remote town and village in England was talking 
 in indignation or amusement of the King's folly. 
 But Philippa was not long left to mourn her 
 husband's disloyalty ; for within three years of 
 her supplanter's coming her death left the field 
 clear for the low-bom rival. 
 
 There was now no obstacle to Edward's open 
 recognition of his favourite, whose hour of triumph 
 had arrived. She was the acknowledged mistress 
 of the King and meant to take full advantage of her 
 position. Before the late Queen was well under 
 ground Alice made claim to her jewels to deck her 
 opulent charms ; but for once she found her lover 
 anything but complaisant. Edward point-blank 
 refused a request which did dishonour to his dead 
 wife, and consigned the jewels to safe custody ; 
 and it was not until he had been four years a 
 widower that she was able to array herself in the 
 
68 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 gems which Philippa had worn with such queenly 
 dignity. 
 
 Other gifts, however, were hers in plenty. 
 Edward lavished on her jewels and costly gowns ; 
 he looked on without a word of protest while she 
 stripped his palace of its choicest treasures for the 
 adorning of her apartments or her person. And 
 still her greed was not satisfied. She must have-, 
 money and broad lands, and these he gave her 
 with a prodigal hand and without a murmur. The 
 exchequer was drained to keep her purse supplied ; 
 one fat manor after another called her its lady, 
 until she counted them in no fewer than seventeen 
 shires. She was the most richly dowered woman 
 in his kingdom ; but still she schemed and cajoled 
 for more and more broad acres, and from each she 
 exacted the last penny she could extort from its 
 unhappy tenant. 
 
 An illustration of her greed is furnished by the 
 following story. The manor of Oxhey had been 
 devised to the monks of St Albans by a pious lady, 
 Joan Whitewell, but the monks were never to 
 benefit by the devise, for a rival claimant to the 
 manor presented himself in one Thomas Fit z John, 
 who tried his utmost to dispute the monks' enjoy- 
 ment of it. When he failed, Alice Ferrers came on 
 the scene, purchased the manor from Fitzjohn for 
 a tenth of its value, and sent a force of armed men 
 to secure possession of it. To the King's favourite, 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 69 
 
 thus supported, the abbot was compelled to 5deld ; 
 and thus another manor, filched from the Church, 
 was added to the long list which called her mistress. 
 
 Never, perhaps, with the exception of George 
 I.'s " Maj^ole Duchess," has a royal mistress 
 reaped so rich a harvest from a king's infatuation. 
 Jewels and silks and rich manors were but a part 
 of the spoil of this weaver's or tiler's daughter. 
 The wardship of infants and their estates added a 
 substantial sum to her annual revenue ; in con- 
 junction with Lord Latimer and a London merchant 
 called Lyons, she created a " comer " in food 
 which, whUe it brought starvation to thousands of 
 poor homes, jdelded her a rich return. She sold fat 
 offices under the Crown to the highest bidders ; 
 and she determined the fall of the scales of justice 
 in favour of any litigant who was willing to pay her 
 price, taking her seat by the judge's side to ensure 
 that his decisions should be always in favour of 
 her cHent. 
 
 So powerful did she become that on one occasion 
 even the Pope came to her as a suppliant, when he 
 sought his brother's release from captivity ; and 
 William of Wykeham, Edward's chancellor and his 
 greatest subject, paid court to her rather than to 
 his master. She was, in fact, England's queen, in 
 all but name, and put on all the airs of a sovereign 
 lady. Stories have come down to us of some of 
 her splendid appearances before her subjects, 
 
70 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " notably at a tournament given in her honour at 
 Smithfield to which she made her regal progress, 
 sitting by the King's side in a magnificent car, 
 attired as the ' Lady of the Sun ' in gorgeous robes 
 of gold-cloth and ermine." Behind her followed, 
 as retinue, a long procession of plumed knights, 
 each leading by the bridle a palfrey, " on which 
 was mounted a gay damsel . ' ' Every day for a week 
 she rode thus through the streets of the city, bowing 
 graciously to the forced cheers and scowling faces 
 of London's citizens, her smile undisturbed when 
 the word " witch," or worse, came to her ears. 
 
 But her reign of splendour and plunder was not 
 to be an unbroken triumph. There had long been 
 murmurings against her evil influence over the 
 King, her rapacity and her mischievous interference 
 with justice, when in 1376 the storm broke over 
 her head. The Commons (known to history as the 
 " Good Parliament ") rose in arms against her and 
 her myrmidons, determined to put an end to her 
 " dyshonest malapertness." Among the many 
 accusations against her were charges of witchcraft, 
 " bringing dishonour to the King's soul and disease 
 to his body by her wantonness," and her too great 
 intimacy with Sir William de Windsor, the King's 
 lieutenant in Ireland. As evidence of her witch- 
 craft it was alleged that she kept in her house a 
 Dominican friar who was a magician " given to 
 wycked enchantments, by whose experiments Ales 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 71 
 
 allured the Kynge to her unlawful! love." This 
 wicked monk had, according to the evidence, made 
 pictures of Edward and AUce, which, with the help 
 of incantations, gave her complete power over her 
 lover. 
 
 With such damning evidence against her (for it 
 was an easy matter to prove every charge to the 
 hilt) there is small wonder that the Parhament 
 presented to the King a unanimous petition for 
 her removal ; or that Edward, shocked by such 
 revelations (especially that of her infidelity), should 
 protest but feebly against it. He stipulated only 
 that she should not be harshly dealt with, and she 
 was compelled to take an oath never again to 
 come near the King under penalty of perpetual 
 banishment, excommunication and the forfeiture 
 of her estates. 
 
 Alice's sun now seemed to have set in eclipse ; 
 but before many months of her sentence had 
 passed the revolution of the political wheel brought 
 about her return and with it a longing for revenge on 
 her enemies. With the death of the Black Prince, 
 the Duke of Lancaster, her friend, assumed the 
 reins of power, and Alice had little difficulty in 
 persuading him to make Peter de la Mare, Speaker 
 of the Parhament which had procured her downfall, 
 her first victim. He was sentenced to life imprison- 
 ment at Nottingham ; and thus one formidable 
 enemy was disposed of. WiUiam of Wykeham 
 
72 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 was deprived of his temporalities ; and one after 
 another all who had dared to raise a voice against 
 the King's favourite were made to feel the weight 
 of her vengeance. The new Parliament was, for 
 obvious reasons, favourably disposed to her ; 
 and once more her sun shone with its former 
 splendour. 
 
 But Edward was now drawing near to the end of 
 his long reign ; and no sooner had Alice Ferrers 
 grasped her sceptre again than she felt it shpping 
 from her hand. She would at least retain her 
 empire to the last ; and with this object she was 
 inseparable from the King during the closing years 
 of his life, shutting the door against all who sought 
 to come near the dying man. With her frivolous 
 chatter of hawking and hunting, of Court gossip, 
 of the coming great tournament he had planned for 
 her amusement, of anything calculated to interest 
 or amuse him, she drew his thoughts away from the 
 rapidly nearing end of all things for him, coaxing 
 from him one gift after another to add to her ill- 
 gotten hoard. But when at last all her babble and 
 forced gaiety could no longer blind him to the fact 
 that he was at the point of death, he turned im- 
 patiently away from her and bade her leave him 
 and send a priest in her place. A few hours later 
 he drew his last breath, with the priest's prayers 
 in his ears and a crucifix close clasped in his 
 hands. 
 
J^://ie^ t-^i^jyie^ 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 78 
 
 Even in the presence of death the wanton was 
 unable to keep her rapacious hands in check ; for, 
 as a quaint chronicler of the times tells us, " so 
 sone as she saw the Kynge had set foote within 
 death's dores, she bethought her of fiyghte ; yet 
 before she went, that all men myght perceave that 
 she loved not the Kynge for himselfe, but for that 
 whiche was his, she tooke the rings from his fingers, 
 which for his royal majestic he was wont to weare 
 — ^thus yielding hym suche thanks for his benefits, 
 she bad him adieu and so withdrew herselfe from 
 him." 
 
 Although her lover was dead Alice was by no 
 means disposed to retire from the scene of her 
 triumphs ; and so long as the Duke of Lancaster 
 was playing Regent to his nephew, Richard II., 
 she seems to have made good use of her remaining 
 opportunities of plunder ; for we read of much 
 further spoil, varying from " fourteen long cushions 
 and eight small ones of white camara " to " a 
 crucifix with the images of Mary and John for a 
 frontal." 
 
 The coming of Richard II. 's new Parhament 
 and the release of Peter de la Mare from his 
 Nottingham prison brought a swift change in her 
 fortunes. Alice, who had now prudently with- 
 drawn herself to her Pallenswick estate (where 
 Hammersmith now stands), was promptly dragged 
 from her retirement to answer a formidable array 
 
74 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 of charges — ^the old accusations revived — ^and, with 
 no soHtary voice raised in her defence, found herself 
 once more sentenced to banishment and to for- 
 feiture of all her possessions. At last a blow had 
 fallen from which, surely, there could be no hope of 
 recovery ; but Alice's heart was as stout as it was 
 false, she had still another card to play in the game 
 that seemed hopelessly lost ; and this card she 
 produced when she induced her former paramour. 
 Sir William de Windsor, to marry her and to con- 
 stitute himself her champion. 
 
 And Sir William proved himself as successful in 
 the role of champion as in that of lover ; for he 
 pleaded her cause so skilfully before Parliament 
 that he secured a reversal of the former judgment ; 
 and after a further year of fighting recovered the 
 forfeited estates, which, however, he took good care 
 to have granted to himself as her husband. Thus 
 at the eleventh hour Alice wrested victory from 
 the jaws of defeat ; but her triumph proved but a 
 sorry one, for the crafty Windsor, on one pretext 
 or another, contrived to retain possession of her 
 estates until his death, when to her dismay she 
 found that his will contained no mention of her 
 name, and that the lands she had so covetously 
 grasped had gone from her for ever. 
 
 Nemesis had at last overtaken her. Stripped of 
 all her possessions, she spent the remainder of her 
 life in vain attempts to recover them. One lawsuit 
 
THE INFATUATION OF A KING 75 
 
 followed another, each involving her deeper in debt. 
 All her petitions to the King drew from him no word 
 of answer. Her life-cup, which had been so sweet 
 to the tasting, was now drained to its last dregs of 
 bitterness, which she was compelled to swallow. 
 Fortunately for her, out of the wreckage of her 
 vast fortune there still remained a small estate at 
 Upminster, to which she was able to retire to spend 
 her last years of friendlessness and poverty — an 
 object of derision to her neighbours, who were not 
 slow to recall her shameful story. 
 
 Here, as her end drew near, she sought solace in 
 a belated piety ; and here she died, after a brief 
 illness, one summer day in the year 1400, leaving 
 a will which is eloquent alike of the straits to which 
 she had been reduced, and of her reahsation of the 
 vanity of life ; for the small legacies she was able 
 to leave, ranging from forty shilUngs downwards, 
 are almost without exception to the church of Up- 
 minster and its officials or for charitable purposes. 
 She bequeaths "an ox for a mortuary, forty 
 shiUings for candles to bum about her body, and 
 ten marks for ornaments." To her two daughters, 
 Jane and Joan (the former of whom was almost 
 certainly Edward's child as well as her own), she 
 leaves " all the manors and advowsons which John 
 W5^dsore or others have, by his consent, usurped " 
 — a visionary legacy which neither ever took the 
 trouble to claim. 
 
76 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Thus, a tardy penitent, without a friend or the 
 memory of a single good act to comfort her last 
 hours, died one of the basest women who have 
 ever exploited the folly of a king to gratify their 
 greed. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 A ROYAL " WOMAN-HATER " 
 
 Frederick II. of Pnissia, known to fame as 
 Frederick the Great, had his share of royal 
 weaknesses ; but it can at least be claimed for 
 him that, in an age notorious for its moral 
 laxity, he set an example of clean-hving which 
 scarcely one of his feUow-sovereigns cared to 
 follow. 
 
 Among epicures he had few rivals in Europe, and 
 he would take as much pride in arranging a menu of 
 delicacies as in planning a campaign. His table 
 was, it is true, rarely served with more than eight 
 dishes ; for, as he said, " he who is not content 
 with eight will not be satisfied with eighty " ; but 
 each dish was as perfect as human skill could make 
 it, and two of them were invariably from his own 
 recipes, and at times, it is said, of his own cooking. 
 While content to wear " ragged linen, dirty shirts, 
 old clothes and cracked boots," he squandered 
 fortunes on rare and costly snuff-boxes, of which he 
 left as many as one hundred and thirty, valued at 
 a miUion and a half thalers. So great was his craze 
 for snuff, of which he always kept two thousand 
 77 
 
78 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 pounds' weight in store, that, according to Lord 
 Malmesbury, " one could hardly approach his 
 Majesty without sneezing." 
 
 As Crown Prince he had a positive mania for 
 monkeys, which he kept, grotesquely dressed, in his 
 room — ^shrieking with laughter at their strange 
 antics. As King he transferred his affection to his 
 greyhounds, which were his constant companions 
 at home, in his walks and journeys, and even on the 
 field of battle. So great was his devotion to his 
 beloved hounds, that when news came to him in 
 Silesia that his favourite, Alcmene, was dead, he 
 gave orders for its body to be placed in a coffin in 
 the library ; and on his return he " would for two 
 or three days look at it for whole hours, in silent 
 grief, weeping bitterly." 
 
 But perhaps his ruling passion was for the theatre 
 and all things theatrical. It was he who estabhshed 
 the Italian Opera in Berlin, paying the entire cost 
 out of his own pocket. " The theatre," we are told, 
 " cost Frederick nearly four hundred thousand 
 thalers a year. The admission was free, the boxes 
 being assigned to the Court, the Ministers, Privy 
 Councillors, etc. The pit was filled by the military, 
 every regiment of the garrison sending a certain 
 number of men." To Berlin came all the best 
 companies from the other capitals of Europe ; and 
 the King was never happier than when gossiping 
 informally with the artistes in the green-room, or 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 79 
 
 attending, and when the mood seized him super- 
 intending, the rehearsals. 
 
 At times, with royal inconsistency, he grew weary 
 of his plaything, as when he once exclaimed, 
 " The opera people are such a blackguardly set that 
 I shall send them all packing. I must have money 
 for cannon, and cannot spend so much on these 
 moiintebanks " ; or when, in one of his parsi- 
 monious moods, he said, " Who in the world but a 
 fool would give four thousand thalers to a dancer 
 (Monsieur Vestris), besides three thousand to his 
 sister, and one thousand to his brother ? " 
 
 Such in his lighter and weaker moods was this 
 grandson of the first of our Georges, one of the 
 greatest soldiers and statesmen of any age, and one 
 of the ablest rulers who ever wore a crown — who, 
 before he died, doubled the area of Prussia, and laid 
 surely the foundations of her present greatness. 
 That he escaped the frailty that marred the lives 
 of his brother-kings was, no doubt, largely due to 
 temperament and the rigid training prescribed by 
 his father. 
 
 He had in his veins none of the heated blood of 
 the Louis' of France or the Tsars of Russia, which 
 explains, if it does not excuse, their flagrant immor- 
 alities. The most beautiful women of his Court 
 smiled on him in vain. " He was an iceberg," one 
 of these baffled beauties declared ; " and the woman 
 is not bom who can thaw him." He was equally 
 
80 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 blind to the blandishments of the most bewitching 
 actresses from Paris and St Petersburg ; and the 
 witchery of twinkling feet and the graceful postur- 
 ings of the sylphs of the ballet, while they pleased 
 his eyes, left his heart untouched. 
 
 So insensible was this austere soldier to all the 
 seductive arts of beauty that he was dubbed by his 
 subjects the " woman-hater " — a. name which has 
 come down to us as inseparably associated with 
 him as the description " Great," won by his skill 
 as a soldier, statesman and empire-builder. But 
 impregnable as he appeared, and in his later years 
 was, to the assaults of woman, his armour of defence 
 was not without its points of weakness. 
 
 In his youth he was, if we are to believe the 
 records, no chevalier sans reproche in the lists of 
 love. Stories are told of indiscretions which 
 marked him as no cold-blooded youth ; and we 
 know that when, in his father's company, he paid 
 a visit to the dissolute Court of Augustus of Saxony, 
 he took no reluctant part in the dissipations pro- 
 vided by his host. As the Margravine of Baireuth 
 tells us in her Memoirs, " Augustus, the Strong, 
 loved the pleasures of this world, and had a complete 
 harem. His excesses baffle all description. The 
 Prussian King and the Crown Prince were drawn 
 into a perfect whirl of pleasures and amusements " — 
 not the least of which was the Prince's dallying with 
 the lovely Countess Orselska, whose reputed father 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 81 
 
 was Augustus himself. When, a httle later, the 
 Saxon King visited Berlin, the Countess came in 
 his train ; and once again Frederick was caught 
 in the toils of her allurements. 
 
 Nor is this the sum of his peccadilloes as a young 
 man ; for a tragic story is told of his infatuation 
 for the beautiful daughter of a Potsdam clergyman. 
 When the King heard of his son's secret assignations 
 with the parson's daughter his rage, a chronicler 
 tells us, was terrible. Not content with depriving 
 and severely punishing the girl's innocent father, 
 he gave orders that she should be flogged and 
 sent to Spandau for three years' hard labour — a 
 sentence which she survived to give her hand in 
 marriage to a cab proprietor and to end her days 
 in poverty, shorn of every vestige of the beauty 
 that had proved so dangerous. 
 
 When, in his turn, Frederick succeeded to the 
 Prussian crown in 1740, and assumed the responsi- 
 bilities not only of a king, but of a married man, 
 he put behind him, once for all, as he thought, 
 all such vanities of the flesh ; and played his new 
 role so well that, as we have seen, he soon qualified 
 for the description, the " woman-hater." It was 
 the King's passion for his theatre that proved his 
 undoing — ^his ambition to draw to his capital all 
 the talent of Europe. All the most famous operatic 
 singers, all the most graceful dancers of the Conti- 
 nent, came readily enough at his bidding, with one 
 
82 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 exception — La Barbarina, the idol of London, 
 Paris and Venice, the most beautiful and bewitching 
 dancer of her age, who alone eluded him and turned 
 her daring back on his most seductive offers. 
 
 But Frederick the Great was not the man to be 
 thus baffled by a woman's caprice. When flatter- 
 ing advances and dazzling offers failed, he entrusted 
 the task of conquering the coy beauty to his minister 
 at Venice, Count Cataneo, whose diplomatic arts 
 at last succeeded in winning her consent to go to 
 Berlin, at a salary of seven thousand thalers, with 
 five months' annual holiday. 
 
 Frederick was delighted with his tardy success ; 
 but his delight was short-lived, for scarcely was the 
 ink dry on the contract when Barbarina changed 
 her mind and vowed that she would not leave 
 Venice. When she was induced to put her signature 
 to the agreement she was fresh from a quarrel with 
 her lover, a handsome young Scotsman, Lord Stuart 
 Mackenzie, and in her anger had gladly seized the 
 opportunity to put half the Continent between her 
 and him. But reconciliation had swiftly followed ; 
 and she was now as determined not to fulfil her 
 contract as she had been glad to sign it. Moreover, 
 she announced that she had been secretly married 
 to the young Scottish Lord, and was on the point 
 of accompanying him to his home. 
 
 But the fickle lady had, for once,' found her 
 master. The most powerful and autocratic king in 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 83 
 
 Europe was not to be thwarted at the last moment 
 by a wilful woman, and he promptly sent a message 
 to Venice, with threats of his royal anger if the 
 Senate did not do its utmost to bring Barbarina to 
 a more submissive frame of mind. Thus driven 
 into a comer, forced to choose between Berlin and 
 arrest, she made a virtue of necessity and was soon 
 on her way to the Prussian capital with a strong 
 escort of cavalry ; her lover following, disguised, 
 in her wake, bribing the innkeepers on the way, 
 and thus contriving to place many a love missive 
 in the hands of his lady. 
 
 At Vienna he induced Count Dolma to send a 
 letter in advance to Frederick, begging the King to 
 release Barbarina from her contract and promising 
 to make her his wife immediately ; and he also sent 
 a very pathetic letter of his own, pleading his cause 
 with all a lover's eloquence. All Frederick's reply 
 to these appeals was a peremptory order that 
 Barbarina should make her first appearance at the 
 Royal Theatre on 14th May 1744. 
 
 It was a proud moment for the Prussian King 
 when at last the Venetian dancer pirouetted on to 
 the stage, a dazzling vision of loveliness and grace, 
 bounding with so light a foot that it scarcely seemed 
 to touch the floor. Her success was immediate, 
 electrical. The entire house rose in a frenzy of 
 enthusiasm ; tornadoes of cheers swept through it, 
 and bouquets fell in rainbow showers at the diva's 
 
84 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 feet. It was a moment of triumph for Barbarina, 
 of intoxication for the King, who rose from his seat 
 and, forgetful for once of his royal dignity, led the 
 s^orm of applause. 
 
 The " iceberg " was thawed at last, by the heat of 
 a new and sudden passion which flamed in his breast. 
 The conqueror of Silesia was himself vanquished 
 by the twinkle of pretty feet, the ravishing grace 
 of movement, and the intoxication of a dazzling 
 smile and a pair of eyes a-dance with youth and 
 the joy of life ; and it was not long before it was 
 rumoured abroad that the " woman-hater " king 
 was the abject slave of the pretty dancer from 
 Venice. He was known to spend hours alone with 
 her in her apartments after the performance was 
 over. She had the place of honour at his right hand 
 at the exclusive suppers of Sans Souci ; and her 
 portrait, painted by his order by the greatest artist 
 in Prussia, smiled down on him from the wall of his 
 library. Such was his ardour that he even wrote 
 verses in praise of her beauty, and sang for her 
 pleasure love ditties of his own conaposition. 
 
 The fame of her dancing and her loveliness ran 
 throughout Prussia, and poets vied with each other 
 in paying homage to her in French and German, 
 and even Latin ; her drives and walks in the streets 
 of Berlin were regal progresses ; and when she 
 appeared on the stage, disappointed thousands were 
 turned away from the theatre doors. And wher- 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 85 
 
 ever the King went she was his constant companion, 
 riding by his side at reviews, and accompanjdng 
 him on journeys of state, and on his yearly pilgrim- 
 age to Pyrmont for the baths. Her Scottish lover 
 was forgotten in the glamour of her royal conquest. 
 Two miserable months he spent in Berlin trjdng 
 in vain to win a glance or a smile from her, and 
 sending to her daily letters of appeal, without 
 evoking a word of answer. 
 
 Many of his missives were in fact intercepted and 
 placed in the King's hands — ^letters in which his chief 
 desire seems to have been to protect her from harm. 
 Thus in one letter, which never reached her, he 
 writes : " I expect you always to be on your guard. 
 Make it an inflexible rule never to dine with anyone, 
 whoever he may be, and never for a moment to be 
 left alone with any man. Do not on any account 
 receive anyone when you are in bed. Do not see 
 the same man too often, that you may not be made 
 the subject of gossip, which, however untrue, may 
 yet do you harm, especially now when all eyes are 
 on you, and all you do is exaggerated." 
 
 Then follows a touching final appeal, for the 
 broken-hearted lover had been ordered by the King 
 to leave Berlin. " This evening I go on board the 
 vessel that is to take me far from you. Think of 
 me when you hear the wind blowing, and think that 
 it is perhaps bringing you my last benediction." 
 
 But Barbarina had no sighs or tears for the lover 
 
86 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 she had so lightly forgotten. She had a hundred 
 other lovers ready to fall at her feet, or to fly at 
 each other's throats for her sake. With what 
 madness she fired their blood is shown by a story 
 told by Campbell in his " Life and Times of 
 Frederick the Great." La Barbarina was dancing 
 before the King and his Court in the crowded opera 
 house ; and in the front row of the stalls two of her 
 greatest admirers were feasting their eyes on her 
 grace and her charms — ^the son of a Berlin banker, 
 and Baron Coceji, son of the Chancellor, a giant in 
 stature and strength, and a man whose jealousy 
 was as great as his passion. 
 
 Suddenly Coceji, fancying that La Barbarina had 
 smiled more sweetly at his rival than at himself, 
 rose in a fury of rage, seized his neighbour by the 
 shoulders and legs and flung him over the heads 
 of the orchestra on to the stage. A thrill of horror 
 and indignation ran through the house ; men rose 
 from their seats to rush on the cowardly assailant, 
 but the upraised hand of the King sent them back 
 again and quiet was restored. 
 
 Then it was that the victim of the outrage, 
 having picked himself up, limped to the front of 
 the stage and explained his dramatic " entrance." 
 " It is not my fault," he said, " that I have made 
 such a sudden appearance on the stage. I was 
 flung here, much against my will, by Baron 
 Coceji " — ^an explanation which was greeted with 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 87 
 
 shouts of sympathetic laughter. Coceji paid for his 
 jealous outburst by a sentence of exile ; and La 
 Barbarina's star shone still brighter as a heroine 
 of beauty and romance. 
 
 Meanwhile, each day saw Frederick more and 
 more under the spell of her witchery ; for in addi- 
 tion to her beauty she had a tongue as clever as her 
 brain. She had, or affected to have, a hundred 
 tastes in common with her royal lover. She adored 
 the theatre, she was a clever musician, she shared 
 his devotion to animals, and she was lost in admira- 
 tion of his collection of snuff-boxes. She had, too, 
 all the tact of a diplomatist and the flattering arts 
 of a courtier. With such an equipment for conquest, 
 alhed to a voice of singular sweetness and a manner 
 now caressing, now bewitching in its coquetry, it is 
 perhaps small wonder that Barbarina made an 
 ardent lover of the austere "hater" of her sex. 
 
 But her conquest was destined, after all, to be 
 brief. For four years Frederick remained secure 
 and happy in her toils. Then satiety seized him ; 
 he grew weary of his pretty plaything, her moods 
 and her extravagances, and gave the first proof 
 of his emancipation when he refused point-blank to 
 pay any more of her debts. And when Barbarina, 
 realising that her reign was over, departed for 
 England to seek solace in her former lover, he said 
 good-bye with a scarcely suppressed sigh of relief. 
 Whether she met again the Scottish lord whom she 
 
88 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 had treated so cavalierly, we do not know; we know, 
 however, that within a few months she was back 
 again in Berlin, and was privately married to 
 the young giant, Coceji, who had given such a 
 starthng exhibition of his jealousy in the Royal 
 Theatre. 
 
 Her bridal bed, however, was not to be one of 
 roses. The Coceji family, furious at such a mesalli- 
 ance, appealed to the King to have the marriage 
 nullified and the designing dancer banished from 
 the country ; and Barbarina had the mortification 
 of seeing her former royal lover arrayed with the 
 enemy against her, and declaring that he would not 
 allow his Chancellor's family to be degraded by an 
 alliance with a mere dancer. 
 
 He even issued an order for the arrest of the 
 bridegroom and his incarceration in the Castle of 
 Altlandsberg ; whereupon Barbarina addressed to 
 him a humble appeal, if not for his favour, at least 
 for mercy. 
 
 " Your Majesty's high sense of honour [she 
 wrote], which abhors all treachery of the heart, 
 gives me hope. May a gracious response to the 
 prayers of your subject put an end to the trouble 
 of one who has the honour to be. Sire, your 
 Majesty's most obedient and dutiful servant, 
 
 " Barbarina Coceji." 
 
 In the course of her petition she begs the King's 
 
A ROYAL "WOMAN-HATER" 89 
 
 clemency on the ground that she is about to become 
 the mother of a Prussian subject and that she had 
 bought a house in BerHn with the hope of founding 
 a family which should be a credit to the country 
 over which he ruled. 
 
 To this appeal from a woman whom he had no 
 doubt loved deeply and sincerely, Frederick, who 
 could be generous as well as just, gave a gracious 
 answer. He not only countermanded his order 
 for the arrest of the Baron, but took considerable 
 trouble to bring about a reconciliation between 
 him and his parents, who, however, still remained 
 obdurate even to the King's pleading. 
 
 For forty years Barbarina lived more or less 
 happily with her husband, until divorce in 1789 
 severed the long union. The remainder of her days 
 she spent in seclusion and works of charity, found- 
 ing an estabUshment for the benefit of young ladies 
 of the nobility, winning the hearts of her poor 
 neighbours by her bounty, and honoured by the 
 noble famihes of Silesia for her gifts of mind and 
 character and her unaffected charm of manner. 
 She survived her royal lover thirteen years, and 
 lived to receive from his successor the title of 
 Countess Campanini before death claimed her one 
 June day in the year 1799. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF THE " BELOVED PRINCESS " 
 
 Of the fifteen children who called George III. 
 father, the flower of the very mingled flock, which 
 contained a more than liberal share of "black 
 sheep," was undoubtedly the Princess Amelia, 
 who was cradled at Queen's House one August 
 day in the year 1783, the last occupant of Queen 
 Charlotte's nursery : 
 
 " With all the Virtues blest and every grace 
 To charm the world and dignify her race." 
 
 Miss Fanny Bumey (Madame d'Arblay) draws 
 a charming picture of this last comer of the royal 
 princesses, as she saw her on the terrace at Windsor, 
 where George loved to promenade of a summer 
 evening with his numerous family and his courtiers. 
 
 " It was," said Miss Bumey, " a mighty pretty 
 procession. The little Princess, just turned three 
 years old, in a robe-coat covered with fine muslin, 
 a dressed close cap, white gloves and a fan, walked 
 on alone and first, highly delighted in the parade, 
 and turning from side to side to see everybody as 
 she passed." 
 
 When the King, catching sight of Mrs Delaney 
 
 90 
 
tV^ zy^y^io?^ rS¥//?/'u//^ 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 91 
 
 among the onlookers, stopped to speak to her, 
 Miss Bumey continues, "the Princess, slowly of 
 her own accord, came behind Mrs Delaney to look 
 at me. 'I'm afraid,' said I, ' your Royal High- 
 ness does not remember me.' What think you 
 was her answer ? An arch little smile and nearer 
 approach with her lips pouted out to kiss me. I 
 could not resist so innocent an invitation ; but 
 the moment I had accepted I was half afraid it 
 might seem in so public a place an improper 
 liberty. However, there was no help for it." 
 
 Such at the age of three was the Princess Amelia 
 — ^lovely, winsome, affectionate, with a quaint 
 sense of her own importance, as when " she com- 
 mands the company to sit down, holds out her 
 little fat hand to be kissed, and makes a distant 
 curtsy with an air of complacency and encourage- 
 ment that might suit any princess of five times her 
 age." That k child so full of charm should be the 
 idol of the family was inevitable. The King, her 
 father, over whom the cloud of insanity was already 
 brooding, idolised her. She was the pet and play- 
 thing of her brothers and sisters, some of whom 
 were old enough to be her parents ; while to all 
 at Court she was the " beloved princess." 
 
 Time, which so often steals away the charms of 
 childhood, added each year some touch of beauty 
 and grace to the Princess Amelia, who at fourteen 
 was, to quote Miss Bumey again, " full as tall as 
 
92 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the Princess Royal, and as much formed. She 
 has an innocency, a Hebe blush, an air of modest 
 candour, and a gentleness so caressingly inviting 
 of voice and manner that I have seldom seen 
 a more captivating young creature." She de- 
 veloped a rare skill in painting and music ; she 
 loved to sing and dance and was full of fun and 
 high spirits ; while she excelled all her sisters as 
 a graceful horsewoman. Unfortunately she had 
 developed too rapidly, had outgrown her strength ; 
 for with her approach to young womanhood began 
 that delicacy of health which was to make so much 
 of the remainder of her brief life a martyrdom to 
 herself and a cause of anxiety to all who loved her. 
 At fifteen she had a serious illness which com- 
 pelled her to spend some months at Worthing, 
 whence she writes to Lady Albinia Cumberland : 
 " I am not as yet allowed to get off my couch. 
 Since I saw you I have been cupped. Yesterday 
 I had on leeches, etc., this evening I got into a hot 
 sea-bath. Everybody is so good I know not what 
 to say." It was while recovering from this illness 
 that Miss Bumey once more met the Princess, who 
 " was seated on a sofa, in a French grey riding- 
 dress with pink lapels, her beautiful and richly 
 flowing and shining fair locks unornamented. 
 Her breakfast was still before her and Mrs Cheveley 
 was in waiting. Lady Albinia announced me, and 
 she [the Princess] received me with the brightest 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 93 
 
 smile, calling me up to her and stopping my pro- 
 found reverences by pouting out the sweet ruby 
 lips for me to kiss. She desired me to come and 
 sit by her ; but ashamed of so much indulgence, 
 I seemed not to hear her, and drew a chair at a 
 little distance. . . . ' No, no ! ' she cried, nodding ; 
 ' come and sit by me here, my dear Madame 
 d'Arblay.' " 
 
 Other serious illnesses followed, each but serving 
 to refine her beauty and to add to her gentleness 
 and sweetness. " She seems too fair and sweet a 
 flower to bloom long in this world," Lady Albinia 
 wrote during a visit with hex charge to We5miouth 
 in 1801. But a new influence was soon to come 
 into the Princess's Ufe, to open a new wonder- 
 world for her, and to do more for her than all the 
 doctors in England could accomplish. To Wey- 
 mouth one day came General Fitzroy, one of her 
 father's equerries, sent by him to attend the 
 Princess on her daily rides, and his coming opened 
 to her a new chapter in her life. 
 
 The Hon. Charles Fitzroy, second son of Lord 
 Southampton, and nephew of the third Duke of 
 Grafton, was the handsomest man at George's 
 Court, a man who alhed a singular charm of manner 
 and rare accomphshments to an unaffected 
 modesty. He was a special favourite of the King 
 and the royal family, by whom he was dubbed 
 " Prince Charles," partly in tribute to his descent 
 
94 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 from the " Merry Monarch," and partly to his 
 distinction of carriage and manner. At the Courts 
 of Europe he had won equally golden opinions. 
 Frederick the Great was one of his most ardent 
 admirers, and the Duchess of Brunswick, sister to 
 George III., wrote of him to the Duchess of Argyll : 
 
 " Tell Lord Southampton we all love his son for 
 his good, affectionate heart and his attachment 
 to his parents." No man at the EngUsh Court 
 could thus have seemed a safer companion for 
 the beautiful young Princess ; no man, in fact, 
 could have been better equipped to win her 
 affection. 
 
 With such a fascinating companion for her daily 
 rides — ^for although General Fitzroy was twenty 
 years her senior he was singularly youthful for his 
 thirty-eight years — ^it is little wonder that admira- 
 tion of her handsome escort quickly ripened into 
 a warmer and tenderer feeling. When she re- 
 turned to Windsor it was remarked by watchful 
 eyes that the Princess, on her daily rides with the 
 King, would leave her father's side and drop behind, 
 nearer to the equerry ; and that in the evening he 
 was her invariable partner at cards. 
 
 So alarmed at these manifestations of affection 
 became Miss Gomme, the Princess's governess, that 
 she considered it her duty to call the Queen's 
 attention to the matter, with the result that her 
 Majesty wrote to her daughter a letter full of 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 95 
 
 counsels of prudence, and begging her not to be 
 angry with Miss Gomme for bringing the matter 
 to her notice. Of the dangers of the intimacy 
 the letter reveals no suspicion, the Queen's chief 
 anxiety being to conciUate her daughter and her 
 governess, and to keep all knowledge of the affair 
 from the King, whose health was causing great 
 anxiety. 
 
 " The constant opportunities for meeting, the 
 daily rides, the private correspondence, the loving 
 glances in church, the games of cards in the even- 
 ing, were all allowed to continue as before. Thus 
 a secret understanding sprang up between the 
 lovers ; and by the autumn of the year they 
 had sworn eternal devotion to each other." 
 
 Many of the letters which the Princess wrote in 
 these halcyon days to her lover have survived ; 
 and all are eloquent of an affection as deep as it 
 was to prove lasting. Thus, in the first of them, 
 written within a few months of the first meeting 
 at We5nnouth, the Princess writes : 
 
 " My own dear Angel, — I am sure you love 
 jne as well as ever. If you can give me a kind 
 word or look to-night, pray do ; and look for me 
 to-morrow riding. Don't leave me ; do let us be, 
 if we can, in comfort ; but tell me your mind and 
 the truth. I shall go to chapel to-morrow, now 
 do sit where I may see you, not as you did last 
 
96 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Sunday morning. Good God, what I then 
 suffered ! Do have your dear hair cut, and keep 
 it for me. ... I hoped yesterday, at latest last night, 
 that I should have heard from you. I daresay 
 you had not time ; and, as you wrote that pre- 
 cious note before you went, I ought to have been 
 satisfied, but that I never am, separate from you, 
 dear Angel." 
 
 Thus for two years the lovers lived golden days, 
 with nothing to cloud their happiness. The King 
 was in ignorance of the romance ; the Queen 
 appears to have been indifferent to it so long as 
 no scandal resulted ; Amelia's brothers and sisters 
 looked on with an amiable toleration, when they 
 did not actually encourage the intimacy. But 
 still Amelia was no nearer the goal of her desires 
 — to be the wife of the man she worshipped. The 
 hopelessness of her passion at last began to prey 
 on her health ; and in the summer of 1803 she 
 was again dangerously ill, so ill that, in contempla- 
 tion of death, she wrote the following touching 
 declaration of her wishes : — 
 
 " It is my last dying and only wish that to you, 
 my beloved Charles Fitzroy, my best friend and 
 everything, and whom nothing but my unfortunate 
 situation parts me from — as I feel assuredly I am 
 the chosen of your heart, as you are of mine — I leave 
 you everything I have, and request you to look 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 97 
 
 over everything, and that all the treasures I wear 
 
 should be buried with me. Lose no time in 
 
 executing my wishes. 
 
 " Amelia." 
 
 But death was not yet to claim her. By the end 
 of the year she was well again, and looking forward 
 hopefxilly to the future, when she might perhaps 
 be allowed to marry her beloved General. The 
 Royal Marriage Act which at present barred her 
 way to the altar had one provision that encouraged 
 her hopes. When she reached the age of twenty- 
 five (in five years' time) she could give notice to 
 the Privy Council of her intended marriage ; and 
 if within a year Parliament did not forbid it, the 
 marriage would be valid. Meanwhile she was wife 
 in all but name ; and from this time all her letters 
 to her lover are signed " A.F.R." — Amelia Fitzroy. 
 
 But her moods of happiness and glad expecta- 
 tion were alternated by despondency and tears. 
 It was so long to wait ; and the hand of Fate might 
 still snatch the cup from her lips. When she spent 
 a few weeks at Stoke Brueme Park, the home of 
 the Wentworth Vemons, it is said, " She would 
 remain indoors all day, passing her time in weeping 
 and lamentation. But at night when the laundress 
 brought the clothes to the house, she would be let 
 down in the clothes-basket from the window, and 
 wander in the park till early morning, when she 
 was dragged up again. At night, too, she would 
 
98 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 sometimes get into a chaise and be driven over to 
 Sholebrook [the house of General Fitzroy], return- 
 ing to Stoke at early dawn." 
 
 Her letters to her lover at this time are more 
 ardent than ever. " Marry you, my own dear 
 Angel, I really must and will," she writes in the 
 summer of 1804. " I glory in our attachment. I 
 pine after my dear Charles more and more every 
 instant. . . . Your dear letter ! O, what a treasure ! 
 I shall keep it, and read it over and over every 
 day. I long for a comfortable ride. Don't leave 
 me an instant of the ride. Pray don't alter in your 
 manner to me in any way, my dear Angel. I really 
 must marry you, though inwardly united, and in 
 reality that is much more than the ceremony, yet 
 that ceremony would be a protection. O, my 
 precious darling, how often do I say — ^would to 
 God my own husband and best friend and guardian 
 was here to protect and assist me, as I am sure 
 was destined in Heaven ; I should then have 
 nothing to fear." 
 
 " Conscious innocence," says Mrs VilUers, her 
 devoted friend, " made the Princess not pause to 
 consider the opinion of the world ; and she gloried 
 in her attachment to so honourable and upright 
 a person as was Charles Fitzroy." But mis- 
 chievous tongues were once more to cause the 
 Princess great unhappiness. Miss Gomme, accused 
 of " winking at " the intimacy, retaliated by seek- 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 99 
 
 ing an interview with the Princess Elizabeth, to 
 whom she said it was time still to save Princess 
 AmeUa, who was all but ruined — ^that all the world 
 was talking of her behaviour ; that General Fitz- 
 roy was always in her room, and that she took that 
 room to have him, for he was seen always coming 
 up and going out at particular hours. 
 
 This scandalous story Amelia told in a letter 
 to her lover, adding, " You may imagine all I have 
 suffered ; but I love you much, much more dearly 
 than ever. My dear Angel, I am so full of you. 
 I shall go mad if I don't see you before you go ! 
 Pray God we may ride Wednesday. I have so 
 much to say to you. Never check yourself now 
 with me. We are married." 
 
 " One day," says Mrs Villiers, " on entering 
 Princess Amelia's room I found her drowned in 
 tears, and apparently in a state of great agony of 
 mind. She threw herself into my arms, saying she 
 could no longer bear to be silent with me on the 
 subject nearest to her heart ; but that now she 
 could keep silence no longer, for she had been tor- 
 mented and insulted beyond endurance by Miss 
 Gomme, who had threatened to expose her to the 
 Queen." 
 
 The Queen had written another letter to her 
 daughter, counselling her to " subdue at once 
 every passion in the begiiming, and to consider 
 the impropriety of indulging any impression which 
 
100 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 must make you miserable, and be a disgrace to 
 yourself and a misery to all who love you." And 
 the poor Princess was so distracted by the attack 
 on her fair fame and her mother's censure that, to 
 quote Mrs ViUiers, she had almost made up her 
 mind to leave the Castle with General Fitzroy, 
 marry him directly and take her chance of forgive- 
 ness — a step from which Mrs ViUiers with diffi- 
 culty dissuaded her. 
 
 It was inevitable that, sooner or later, the voice 
 of scandal should reach the ears of the King. A 
 painful interview took place in 1808 between father 
 and daughter, which resulted in a serious breach 
 between them. But even this crowning trouble 
 was powerless to cause Amelia to waver in her 
 loyalty. The continued strain, however, proved 
 too great for her strength, and symptoms of con- 
 sumption began to show themselves. Once more 
 she poured out her soul to Fitzroy in a letter which 
 " you will receive when I am dead." 
 
 " O God," she cries, " how I do love you ! 
 Each day and hour has endeared you to me ; 
 accept the gratitude and affection of her who owes 
 you everything — ^for ever your most affectionate 
 friend and wife — I own I can never help praying 
 and hoping a time may yet come when the Al- 
 mighty may bless and join us in persons, as we are 
 in hearts, ever inseparable. ... I have loved you. 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 101 
 
 prized and esteemed you more every instant. 
 
 God bless you, my own dearest and most beloved 
 
 Angel ! Ever on earth or in Heaven equally your 
 
 attached wife and darling, 
 
 "A.F.R." 
 
 When on 7th August 1808 the Princess com- 
 pleted her twenty-fifth year she wrote to the Lord 
 Chancellor, desiring him to acquaint the Privy 
 Council of her intention to marry General Fitzroy 
 and imploring his influence and support. She 
 also wrote to her brother, the Prince of Wales, 
 informing him of this act and declaring, " I am 
 wilUng to give up family and everything to devote 
 my life to that object of my affection for whom 
 only I value my existence. General Fitzroy pos- 
 sesses all my affection, and for years I have con- 
 sidered myself his lawful wife, though suffering 
 all the trials of that without ever enjoying my 
 rights." 
 
 But a sterner hand than that of the law was now 
 being outstretched to bar the way to the altar 
 and happiness. Consumption had the Beloved 
 Princess in its remorseless clutches, and it rapidly 
 become evident to all that her life was drawing to 
 its end. So ill was she in May 1809 that Mrs 
 Villiers wrote, " The Princess Amelia is reaUy, I 
 fear, dying. She has so little chance of happiness 
 in this world that I believe it is selfish to wish her 
 to live. The longer her illness lasts, the more 
 
102 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 perfect she appears. I never in my life met with 
 such sweetness of temper and resignation as hers 
 and such wonderful consideration for all those 
 who love her." 
 
 In the following summer the Princess had a 
 remarkable rally, and once more life seemed to 
 hold out golden promise. So far no answer had 
 been received from the Privy Council, and this 
 silence she interpreted as a happy augury. But 
 the rally was brief ; and again we find her, on the 
 eve of leaving Windsor for Weymouth, writing 
 her last wishes, and bequeathing her belongings — 
 furniture, money, trinkets, books — ^to her beloved 
 Charles Fitzroy. " Nothing," she writes, " but 
 the cruel situation I am placed in of being daughter 
 to the King, and the laws made by the King respect- 
 ing the marriages of the royal family, prevents my 
 being married to him which I consider I am in 
 my heart, and which vow and sole object has been 
 my comfort and guide these last ten years and can 
 but end with my life." 
 
 But Weymouth had now no power to bring 
 health back to the dying Princess, whose last days 
 were embittered by " the harshness and unkind- 
 ness she experienced from the Queen during all 
 her sufferings," and also from her sister, the Princess 
 Elizabeth, " who treated her with much cruel un- 
 kindness and ill-temper." From the rest of her 
 family she received, however, the utmost tenderness 
 
THE "BELOVED PRINCESS" 103 
 
 and sympathy, especially from the King, who, blind 
 though he was, sent her many touching letters. 
 
 It is said that shortly before the end came the 
 ceremony of marriage was actually gone through 
 to give happiness to her last moments. The 
 Princess of Wales wrote early in 1810, " Everyone 
 believes that Princess Amelia is married to Mr 
 Fitzroy, and they say she has confessed her mar- 
 riage to the King, who is miserable at his expected 
 loss of his daughter." But Mrs Villiers, who was 
 in a position to know the truth, denies " that she 
 was ever married, or ever had a child," and asserts 
 that " it was conscious innocence that made her 
 what her sisters call imprudent." 
 
 In July 18 10 she wrote her last letter to her 
 lover : 
 
 " My ever most Beloved Chosen and Valued 
 Charles [in which she arranged again for the 
 disposal of her possessions. The letter begins], — 
 This will you open when I am no longer an in- 
 habitant of this world ; but I die as I have lived 
 blessing you, and my only comfort is the hope I 
 may now watch over you in spirit and hereafter 
 we may be joined to part no more. [And closes :] 
 Now, God bless you, and may He allow me to 
 assist in watching and guarding your life, prays 
 your dying, as did your living, affectionate 
 
 " Amelia." 
 
104 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Day by day she sank more under her sufferings, 
 her last hours comforted by visits from her bhnd 
 father, " bending over her couch and speaking 
 to her about salvation through Christ," and by 
 clandestine visits from her faithful lover. And 
 on All Souls' Day she died, as one dropping 
 gently to sleep, her last words to her sister. 
 Princess Mary, being, " Tell Charles I die blessing 
 him." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 MONSIEUR LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 
 
 In the latter years of the fourteenth Louis no lady 
 in Paris kept the tongue of scandal more pleasantly 
 wagging than Madame de Pleneuf , wife of a wealthy 
 army contractor, whose sumptuous hotel was at 
 the comer of the rues de Clery and Poissoniere. 
 Twenty years younger than her bourgeois hus- 
 band, whose second wife she was, Madame was as 
 famous for her beauty as for her contempt for 
 les convenances. " Tall, perfectly shaped, with 
 an extremely agreeable countenance, intelUgence, 
 grace, tact and savoir-vivre," as Saint Simon 
 describes her, she was a veritable queen of society 
 and drew to her salons in the rue de Clery all 
 fashionable Paris. 
 
 With an unsuspecting husband, whose duties took 
 him away from his home for long and frequent 
 periods, Madame had abundant opportunities to 
 indulge her love of adventure, and there was never 
 any lack of gallants to minister to her vanity and 
 to worship at the shrine of her beauty. Her legion 
 of lovers was recruited from all classes — ^princes 
 and dukes, cardinals and canons, marshals and 
 marquesses vied with each other for her smiles and 
 
106 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 her favours, and to all, in turn, she was equally 
 gracious. 
 
 She displayed great address in managing her 
 crowd of soupirants. She knew how to pick and 
 choose among her admirers ; and there was not 
 one of the chosen band who dared to show either 
 jealousy or mortification. Each one hoped for his 
 turn ; and, while waiting, the choice more than 
 suspected was respected by all in perfect silence, 
 without the least altercation between them. " All 
 passed without protest from the rank of candidate 
 for her favour to that of lover, and from that of 
 lover to that of friend ; and of friends, in some 
 instances, ready to make considerable sacrifices 
 for her sake." 
 
 Among the many children who came to this lady 
 of the legion of lovers was a daughter, Agnes, 
 cradled in 1698, who gave promise of a beauty 
 greater even than that of her mother, and who 
 was destined to prove her greatest rival. Before 
 she had reached her sixteenth birthday all Paris 
 was talking of the girl whose loveliness was already 
 attracting crowds of admirers to the de Pleneuf 
 mansion. Saint Simon waxed eloquent over her 
 beauty, her exquisite figure, her singular captiva- 
 tion ; Duclos vowed that " everything about her 
 was seductive " ; and President Herault went into 
 ecstasies over her supple figure, and her nymph- 
 like grace — " her delicate face, well-formed nose. 
 
M. LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 107 
 
 blonde hair, expressive eyes ; in a word, a physiog- 
 nomy refined and distinguished, and a voice as 
 charming as her face." 
 
 Madame de Pleneuf had good cause to be proud 
 of her beautiful child, her fleur des pois, and was 
 devoted to her — ^until she began to reahse that 
 the lovers who had so long been her slaves were 
 beginning to cast glances of a warmer admiration 
 on her daughter. Then affection was gradually 
 changed to dislike, and finally to the bitterest 
 jealousy and hatred. " In proportion," Saint 
 Simon tells us, " as the daughter pleased by a 
 hundred attractions, she displeased her mother. 
 The advantages of youth irritated her. Madame 
 could not endure the sight of homage addressed 
 to others than herself at her own house." 
 
 The climax came when the young and handsome 
 Comte d'Augennes, the most favoured of Madame 's 
 lovers, transferred his affection to Agnes, and made 
 open love to her under her mother's eyes. This 
 was a crowning outrage and humiliation which was 
 not to be tolerated. Her anger, which hitherto 
 had foimd vent in petty spitefulness, burst all 
 restraints ; and, after a violent scene, she declared 
 that the girl should be placed in a convent, imtil 
 a husband could be found to take proper charge 
 of her ; and all Madame 's energy and abiUties 
 were now directed to the finding of a son-in-law. 
 
 Fortunately for her, this was a simple matter. 
 
108 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 There were many lovers eager to accept the role ; 
 and before many weeks had passed the choice fell 
 on the Marquis de Prie, a man twenty-five years 
 older than Agnes, but of unimpeachable position. 
 It is true that the Marquis's estates were heavily 
 mortgaged ; but he was a member of one of the 
 greatest families in France, a general in the army, 
 Governor of Bourbon-Lancy and — godfather of 
 the heir to the throne. To the easy-going M. de 
 Pleneuf the match was ideal ; and he was very 
 willing to part with a few of his money-bags for 
 the honour of having for son-in-law a marquis, 
 who was also godfather to the coming king ! 
 
 Thus it came about that one day in 1713 Agnes 
 de Pleneuf, still but a child of fifteen, blossomed 
 into Madame la Marquise de Prie and was taken as 
 a bride to dazzle the Court of Louis XIV. by her 
 radiant young beauty. A few weeks later she was 
 on her way to Turin with her middle-aged husband, 
 who had been appointed Ambassador to the King 
 of Sardinia. 
 
 For five years the Marquise remained in the 
 capital of Piedmont, revelling in the homage paid 
 to her beauty, the queen of every social gathering, 
 and reasonably happy with her husband, who was 
 at least always kind and attentive. Then, when 
 life seemed at its fairest, the clouds of misfortune 
 began to gather. Her father, who had long been 
 suspected of fraud in connection with his army 
 
M. LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 109 
 
 contracts, was threatened with arrest, and when it 
 was imminent fled, an unexpected guest, to his 
 daughter's roof in Turin. In saving his person, 
 however, he had forfeited his fortune, which was 
 promptly sequestrated to replace his ill-gotten 
 gains ; and he arrived in Piedmont a disgraced 
 and ruined man. 
 
 To the Marquis and his wife no calamity could 
 have been greater ; for the Ambassador had been 
 living as a prince largely on his father-in-law's 
 well-Kned purse. His own small fortune and his 
 wife's dowry were exhausted, and poverty, if no 
 worse, thus stared him in the face. For a time he 
 kept disaster at bay by pawning his plate and 
 borrowing money at usurious interest ; until at 
 last, in despair, he decided to send the Marquise 
 to Paris to beg assistance from the Government, if 
 only to the extent of paying him the arrears of 
 his salary. 
 
 It was a very different Paris to which Agnes de 
 Pleneuf returned from that which she had left as 
 a bride five years earlier. The Sun King was no 
 more ; his dreary and decorous Court was replaced 
 by the splendour and licence inaugurated by the 
 Regent d' Orleans . ' ' Vice, which for so many years 
 had scarcely dared to rear its head, now stalked 
 abroad naked and unashamed. Virtue, and even 
 ordinary decency, was mocked at and derided. 
 The pent-up impatience of a corrupt society was 
 
110 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 finding relief in a veritable saturnalia of sensuality." 
 Such was the capital and such the Court in which 
 Madame de Prie now found herself, the most 
 beautiful woman there and also the most unpro- 
 tected ; for poverty is but a feeble guardian of 
 such virtue as she had inherited from her mother. 
 
 Although the Marquise lived obscurely in the 
 house of one of her aunts — ^nothing would have in- 
 duced her to share the home of her jealous mother, 
 who was still pursuing pleasure as in the days of her 
 prosperity — ^it was not long before gossip was busy 
 with the name of the lovely Marchioness who was 
 so often closeted with that arch-roue, the Regent, 
 with the "wicked" Cardinal Dubois, and others 
 in high places, of similar repute. She was frankly 
 suspected of employing her charms to mend her 
 broken fortunes ; and her name was associated 
 with such notorious gallants as d'Alencourt and 
 the Marechal de la Feuillade. 
 
 It was common knowledge that the Regent was 
 much attracted by her, and that she had been 
 present at many of the petits sotipers — ^those 
 midnight orgies of the Regent and his roues at 
 which Paris, with all its new licence, affected to 
 be shocked. And foremost among those who gave 
 currency to these rumours was Madame's mother, 
 whose jealousy had burst into fierce flame again at 
 her daughter's new conquest and rivalry. 
 
 That there was no truth, or but little truth, in 
 
M. LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 111 
 
 these whisperings of scandal is more than probable. 
 But true or false, Fate was preparing a revolution 
 in the Marquise's life which was to prove that she 
 was, after all, no unworthy daughter of her mother. 
 One night in the autumn of 1719, at a ball at the 
 Opera, the Due de Bourbon, Prince of the Blood 
 Royal, was attracted by two masked ladies of 
 conspicuous grace and sprightliness, who led him 
 a merry and tantaKsing dance, laughing impishly at 
 all his requests that they would unmask and reveal 
 their identity. 
 
 At the next Opera ball the two fair unknowns 
 were again present, but this time in a more com- 
 pliant mood ; for after much teasing and coquetting 
 one of them at last removed her mask, and dis- 
 played to the delighted Prince the loveliest face 
 he had ever seen — ^that of Madame la Marquise de 
 Prie ; "at sight of which Monsieur le Due in- 
 continently succumbed." Such at least is one story 
 of a meeting which for Duke and Marchioness was 
 to be fraught with great consequences. That the 
 Princef ell desperatelyin love with the Ambassador's 
 wife at first sight, we know ; and also that, whether 
 it was love on her part or not, she made small 
 resistance when he asked her to become his 
 " mistress." " From the first hour until the time, 
 six years later, when circumstances over which 
 neither of them had any control came to force 
 them apart, she dominated Monsieur le Due 
 
112 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 entirely, and he adored her with an intensity of 
 devotion of which no one had beheved him capable. 
 He consecrated himself to her body and soul." 
 
 Nor was such devotion surprising, for, in 
 addition to her peerless beauty, Madame de Prie 
 possessed in a superlative degree the intelligence 
 and tact, the clever brain and tongue which play 
 so vital a part in the complete conquest of man. 
 " She amused him," M. Thirion says ; " she dis- 
 tracted him ; she showed a profound respect for 
 his decisions, which flattered his vanity. She 
 never gave him advice except when asked for it." 
 In short, she so insinuated herself into the heart 
 and mind of the Prince that she " disposed of him 
 as a slave." 
 
 Here, indeed, was a dramatic transformation 
 for the wife of a ruined ambassador, the daughter 
 of a bankrupt and disgraced father. As mistress 
 of a royal duke, a possible heir to the throne of 
 France, she found herself surrounded with luxury 
 and splendour, worshipped by a lover who lived to 
 minister to her pleasure. The Due's inexhaustible 
 purse provided the costliest jewels and gowns to 
 deck her loveliness ; the greatest artists in France 
 clamoured to paint her charms, as the most famous 
 poets sang them ; and as a queen, arrayed in 
 ravishing toilettes and blazing with diamonds, she 
 did the honours of the Due's palatial homes. 
 
 It was, perhaps, inevitable that such elevation 
 
M. LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 113 
 
 of a petite bourgeoise, the daughter of a fraudulent 
 contractor, should excite jealousy and hatred 
 among less-favoured women ; and soon there was 
 no discreditable invention of her past which was 
 not being circulated in Paris. From her child- 
 hood, the scandalmongers declared, she had been 
 flagrantly immoral ; her extravagance had ruined 
 her husband ; she had repaid her mother's devotion 
 with base treachery and cruelty ; and as for the 
 Prince, she had bewitched him by "initiating him 
 into vices imported by her from Italy, and hither- 
 to unknown in France." " Chansons, venomous 
 satires, slanders, calumnies rained upon her until, 
 if she had been a more sensitive woman, she might 
 well have been driven to the verge of despair." 
 
 But Madame de Prie was no woman to cower 
 before even such a tornado of scandal. Opposition 
 was always her best tonic, and obstacles were made 
 to be overcome. With supreme beauty and a clever 
 brain for weapons, and her royal lover for champion, 
 she could afford to smile at the most venomous 
 inventions of jealous tongues. With infinite skill 
 and diplomacy she won to her side one powerful 
 supporter after another. The Regent, whose fancy 
 she had quickly captivated, as we have seen. 
 Cardinals Dubois and De Rohan (the latter, one of 
 her mother's most favoured lovers and thus a great 
 capture for her), the Due de Richeheu, and many 
 another great personage in the Government and at 
 
 H 
 
114 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the Court took up arms for her against her enemies, 
 the most virulent of whom were Le Blanc, Secretary 
 of State for War and the Comte de Belle-Isle. 
 
 Into the involved story of plot and counterplot, 
 and of the subtle diplomacy with which she con- 
 ducted her campaign, there is no space to enter. 
 It must suffice to say that she not only confounded 
 her enemies, but, by a crowning effort, secured the 
 appointment of her lover to the premiership of 
 France, within an hour after the Regent had drawn 
 his last breath in the arms of Madame de Phalaris. 
 Monsieur le Due was now master of the realm, and 
 Madame de Prie was mistress of all that was his. 
 
 It was a difficult task which the Due de Bourbon 
 had undertaken ; for the treasury was empty, 
 commerce was ruined, and the Church and Court 
 alike were rent by schism — ^the battle-grounds of 
 contending factions. He faced the task, however, 
 with a brave heart, and soon won popularity by 
 his personal charm and magnanimity, and by 
 reforms inspired by his mistress's tact. But, in 
 spite of this temporary success, he quickly realised 
 that he had powerful enemies. The boy-King 
 looked coldly on him and even refused to grant 
 him interviews ; the Orleanists to a man were 
 arrayed against him ; and in Cardinal Fleury he 
 had a foe as crafty as he was plausible. 
 
 For a time Madame de Prie abandoned herself 
 to the enjoyment of her new and exalted position- 
 
M. LE DUC AND THE MARQUISE 115 
 
 At her lover's palaces in Paris and at Versailles, the 
 Hotel Conde and the Hotel of the Grand Master, 
 she entertained with a regal hospitality — ^herself 
 the soul of aU gaiety and the centre of univer- 
 sal homage and admiration, bewitching all by 
 her smiles and her coquetries, her sweet singing 
 and her graceful acting. The Hotel of the 
 Grand Master she converted into a veritable fairy 
 palace, a wonder-house of paintings and statuary, 
 tapestries and objects of art, gathered from all 
 parts of the world at fabulous cost. 
 
 But it was not long before the storm of hatred 
 raised by the enemies of her husband and herself 
 broke. " Insults and menaces rained upon her and 
 the Due ; the most disgusting effusions concerning 
 them were scattered about in the gallery and salons 
 of Versailles and even in the bedchamber of the 
 young King ; the most biting chansons circulated 
 in Paris ; and almost every day came warnings 
 that their Uves were in danger." This was no time 
 for a frivolous pursuit of pleasure ; and Madame 
 once more set herself to face the storm. 
 
 She entered enthusiastically into her lover's 
 work, interviewed ministers, directed his patronage, 
 guided his poHcy— in fact, took the reins into her 
 own more capable hands. All who approached her 
 were amazed at her industry, her shrewdness, her 
 grasp of matters usually considered quite beyond 
 the comprehension of a woman. " She was," to 
 
116 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 quote the Abbe Legendre, " a heroine capable of 
 regulating the affairs of a vast Empire." She even 
 succeeded in thawing the King*s coldness, to such 
 an extent indeed that, we read, " he laughed and 
 jested with her, invited her to sup at his own table 
 and to ride in his carriage to the chase ; and indeed 
 he was so gracious to that lady that a rumour 
 circulated in Paris that she and her fair friends had 
 designs upon the virtue of the young Monarch." 
 
 One man's friendship, however, even all her arts 
 were powerless to win, that of the crafty Cardinal, 
 who, all smiles and flatteries to her face, was an 
 implacable enemy of her and her lover behind their 
 backs. The King himself was the merest puppet 
 in the hands of Fleury, who was determined on the 
 Due's dismissal. Madame de Prie at last sought 
 to conciliate him by offering to retire from public 
 life. In March 1726 she withdrew to her estate 
 near Lisieux, begging the Queen's permission to 
 be allowed to remain there. The Cardinal was 
 delighted at this evidence of victory ; but his 
 delight was short-lived, for the Due de Bourbon, 
 deprived of his best counsellor, quickly sent orders 
 that she should return to Versailles. This defiance 
 of his wishes decided the Cardinal to strike. 
 Monsieur la Due must go, and his lady-love with 
 him. 
 
 A few days later the Due de Charost handed the 
 Prime Minister an order from Louis to retire to 
 
M. LE DUG AND THE MARQUISE 117 
 
 Chantilly until further orders. The King wished 
 to govern for himself in future and would not 
 require the Due's services any longer. The blow, 
 long expected, had fallen at last, and Fleury's 
 triumph was complete. " Every day follows 
 another and does not resemble it," the dismissed 
 Premier wrote to his mother, Madame la Duchesse. 
 " Yesterday I was Caesar ; to-day I am Pompey. 
 I am going to Chantilly ; and I count on your still 
 preserving for me your good graces." 
 
 Two days later Madame de Prie, who had 
 hastened to rejoin her lover at Chantilly, received 
 a lettre de cachet exiUng her to her husband's estate, 
 Courbepine, in Normandy. Her parting with the 
 Due was most touching. " Twice after entering 
 her carriage she returned, not being able, she said, 
 to depart without again embracing Monsieur le 
 Due. She appeared in despair at leaving him 
 and gave him all the tokens of a passionate love.- 
 The Prince, on his side, was so afflicted that it is 
 impossible to describe it." 
 
 Thus in separation and exile closed Madame's 
 six years' supremacy. But she was not long left 
 to bewail her downfall. Shut off from the world 
 of her past splendour in her remote Norman 
 chateau, grieving less for herself than for her 
 relatives and friends who, through her, were 
 reduced to poverty, she spent the short remainder 
 of her days in loneHness and sorrow. 
 
118 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 In the autumti of 1727 she received such injuries 
 in a carriage accident that, after a few weeks of 
 painful hngering, her hfe closed on the 7th October, 
 before she had seen her thirtieth birthday. As for 
 Monsieur le Due, he survived his mistress fourteen 
 years. He was pardoned, and returned to Court 
 in 1830 ; but he appeared no more on the political 
 stage, preferring the peace of his study and his 
 laboratory to the perilous pleasure of power. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 A FATAL PASSION 
 
 It was surely under an evil star that Rudolf, heir 
 to the dual throne of Austria and Hungary, was 
 cradled one August day in the year 1858. Son of 
 an epileptic father and of a mother in whose veins 
 ran the tainted blood of the Wittelsbachs — ^the 
 blood which made madmen of his first cousins, 
 Ludwig II. and Otho, Kings of Bavaria — ^the curse 
 of insanity shadowed him from his very birth, and 
 beyond a doubt was in some degree responsible for 
 the terrible tragedy that closed his life thirty years 
 later, at Mayerling, to the horror of the world. 
 
 As a child he was puny and sickly, with every 
 mark of the degenerate ; and every circumstance 
 of his training conspired to develop the defects of 
 mind and body which were his heritage. He could 
 have had no worse guardian that his grandmother, 
 the Archduchess Sophia, who was the custodian of 
 the first nine years of his life. His mother, the 
 beautiful Empress Ehzabeth, unable any longer to 
 bear the cruelties and infidelities of her husband, 
 was wandering, a sad exile, over the face of the 
 earth ; and in her absence the Archduchess, who 
 hated her daughter-in-law, not only taught the child 
 119 
 
120 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to hate and despise his mother, but seems deUber- 
 ately and mahciously to have tried to develop all 
 that was bad in him. 
 
 When EUzabeth at last returned to Court, eager 
 to take her beloved boy to her heart, he received her 
 advances with scowls and sullen looks ; and instead 
 of flying to her arms, as she had fondly hoped, 
 turned his back on her and ran out of the room 
 to tell his grandmother that the " monster " had 
 returned. It was a heart-breaking task to which 
 the Empress now set herself — ^that of winning the 
 love and trust of her own son ; but with infinite 
 patience, tenderness and tact she at last succeeded. 
 But more than these, in was his mother's beauty 
 that first won the admiration and then the homage 
 of the boy, to whom the beautiful always made a 
 powerful appeal to his last day. 
 
 But though Elizabeth thus won back her son's 
 affection, the evil effects of the Archduchess's 
 training remained ineradicable. The long indul- 
 gence of every whim had made him unbearably 
 conceited and autocratic. If his will, however 
 unreasonable, was thwarted he would fly into 
 passions almost insane in their violence, and fol- 
 lowed by long periods of sulking. He was swollen 
 with a ridiculous sense of his own dignity as heir 
 to the crown and showed his contempt of all whose 
 blood was not royal like his own. 
 
 He was, in fact, at this early age, an impossible 
 
A FATAL PASSION 121 
 
 boy, insufferably autocratic, conceited and cap- 
 ricious ; and yet that there remained some germ of 
 good in him many a story proves. Thus, on one 
 occasion, after a more than usually furious exhibi- 
 tion of temper, his mother in despair sat down at 
 the piano and began to sing one of Schubert's songs 
 in her sweet, musical voice. The storm that raged 
 in the boy's breast was luUed as by magic ; and, 
 soon, feeling a little hand on her arm, she looked 
 round to see Rudolf's eyes swimming with tears. 
 " Forgive me, mamma," he said, " I am sorry." 
 " What are you sorry for, Rudy ? " she asked, not 
 feeling quite sure of his penitence. " For what 
 I said. When you sing, you know, I always feel I 
 am getting more good." And thus it always was ; 
 from his fiercest rages Rudolf would pass quickly 
 into a mood of penitence, when the depths of his 
 heart were stirred by an appeal to its passion for 
 the beautiful. 
 
 But all a mother's loving care was powerless to 
 vmdo the harm done by those first nine years of the 
 Archduchess's training in evil ways ; and when, on 
 his sixteenth birthday, Rudolf attained his majority 
 and his independence the Empress looked forward 
 tearfully to the years that were to come, when her 
 son, no longer under control, would be able to 
 indulge his weaknesses and appetites to the fuU. 
 For a time the army claimed him ; but Rudolf soon 
 wearied of a soldier's life with its rigid discipline 
 
122 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 and odious routine, and he quickly made it clear, 
 to his father's intense disappointment, that a soldier 
 he would never be. 
 
 Then followed a period of travelling, the results 
 of which he published to the world in two volumes, 
 " Fifteen Days on the Danube " and " A Journey 
 in the East " — volumes which revealed him in a new 
 light as a lover of nature with uncommon powers of 
 observation and description. When his journey- 
 ings were over he occupied himself usefully with 
 the production of a monumental work on " The 
 Austro-Hungarian Monarchy in Words and 
 Pictures," in which he had the assistance of the 
 greatest writers and most learned men of his 
 country. 
 
 But such activities as these soon palled. He 
 wearied of the society of authors and savants, and 
 flung himself into dissipation under the guidance 
 of his friend, Count Charles Bonbelles, a man who 
 had nothing to learn from anyone in the ways 
 of vicious pleasure ; and his parents watched, in 
 helpless alarm, the downward path of the son each 
 loved so deeply. 
 
 It became now a matter not only of policy, but 
 of urgent necessity, to find a suitable wife for the 
 Lothario Prince ; and this proved no easy task, for 
 the number of suitable princesses at the time was 
 very small. Thus it was that Rudolf was sum- 
 moned from his low pursuit of pleasure to go wife- 
 
A FATAL PASSION 123 
 
 hunting to the different Courts of Europe. His first 
 journey was to Saxony, to make the acquaintance 
 of the Princess Mathilda ; but the sight of the 
 short, rotund, plain-featured lady, with her atmos- 
 phere of piety, was more than sufficient for Rudolf, 
 who turned a disgusted back on Dresden within 
 twenty-four hours of setting foot in it. 
 
 His second adventure, to Madrid, was equally 
 fruitless ; for the two unmarried Spanish prin- 
 cesses, the Infanta and Eulalie Francesca, proved as 
 devoid of charm as the Saxon Mathilda — excellent 
 young women no doubt, but almost repellent to a 
 man to whom physical beauty was so necessary. 
 There now only remained the Princess Stephanie, 
 daughter of the Belgian King ; and to Brussels the 
 Prince made his next and last journey of explora- 
 tion. Here again disillusion met him on the 
 threshold ; for Stephanie proved as little to his 
 taste as the royal ladies of Saxony and Spain. At 
 sixteen the Belgian Princess was a weedy, angular, 
 awkward girl, with red eyehds, colourless lips and 
 nondescript flaxen hair, clumsy in movement and 
 shy and spiritless in manner. That she was quite 
 impossible he quickly decided ; and when he re- 
 turned to Vienna it was to announce his determina- 
 tion to end his days a bachelor. 
 
 This time, however, Francis Joseph put his foot 
 firmly down. His son and heir must marry, and 
 Stephanie should be his bride ; and thus one March 
 
124 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 day, in 1880, the bells were set a-ringing throughout 
 Austria and Hungary in celebration of the betrothal 
 of the heir to the throne ; and the Emperor was 
 informing deputations of congratulating subjects, 
 " Our son's betrothal fills our heart with a joy which 
 is all the profounder because this is not an act of 
 policy but a true union of loving young hearts. 
 For it is to love and love alone that we must look 
 for the foundation of all married happiness." 
 
 That this affected joy of her husband was not 
 shared by the Empress we know from the letters 
 she sent to her " poor dear son," in which she 
 wrote : "It terrifies me to see that you do not 
 understand what frightful misery there is in store 
 for you from this marriage which you are under- 
 taking with such a light heart ; and without the 
 slightest feeling of love to guide you. ... I cannot 
 but conclude that Stephanie is not at all the wife 
 for you, and can never be so." 
 
 But, although the Empress looked forward to the 
 ill-assorted union with such foreboding, and did her 
 utmost to prevent it, all her efforts were futile ; 
 and one May day in 188 1 the Belgian Princess made 
 her entry into Austria, to be greeted by her bride- 
 groom at Salzburg, under a triumphal arch bearing 
 the inscription, Tufelix, Austria, nubes. At Schon- 
 brunn the Emperor received her, and the same day 
 a grand State ball was given in her honour. A 
 little later Stephanie was making regal progress 
 
A FATAL PASSION 125 
 
 through the streets of Vienna, in an Imperial coach 
 of crystal and gold, to the clashing of joybells and 
 thunders of cheers ; and on the following day, the 
 loth of May, the Empress was kneeling by her 
 husband's side, the tears streaming down her 
 cheeks while the Archbishop of Prague held hands 
 of blessing over the bridal pair. 
 
 It was not long before Elizabeth's worst fears 
 had their justification. Before the honeymoon 
 had waned, Rudolf began to realise the fatal mistake 
 he had made. He had no taste, no thought in 
 common with his Belgian bride ; they had not even 
 a common language in which to converse. She 
 had as little sympathy with his talk of literature, 
 science and travel as he with her frivolous chatter 
 of frocks, balls and receptions. The more he tried 
 to entertain his wife, the more petulant and sulky 
 she became, until he was glad to escape from the 
 boredom a deux to his chateau at Mayerling, where 
 he had his hunting and his boon companions to 
 make the days pass pleasantly. 
 
 Thus from the first the two lives drifted widely 
 apart : Rudolf absorbed in his sport, card-pla5dng 
 and more questionable pleasures ; Stephanie spend- 
 ing her days in pique and jealousy at Vienna, and, 
 on the few occasions of their meeting, welcoming 
 him with reproaches which usually ended in violence 
 and tears. Or, we are told, " she would sulk for 
 days at a time, and steadfastly showed to Rudolf 
 
126 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 a sullen, scowling and unfriendly face. . . . To punish 
 her husband, she locked her door against him ; but 
 Rudolf merely smiled and went out deliberately 
 to find pleasanter surroundings." 
 
 Strange tales are told of the scenes that took 
 place between the unhappy couple — of the palace 
 corridors echoing with loud imprecations ; of foot- 
 men picking up in their rooms the fragments of 
 valuable crockery and trinkets which Stephanie 
 had shattered in her rages. It is perhaps little to be 
 wondered at that Rudolf was driven more and more 
 to find his pleasures elsewhere, in the company of 
 more amiable women who, it is said, were of all 
 ranks, from the wife of a coachman to a Princess 
 of the Blood. Even Stephanie's growing beauty — 
 for within three years of her wedding the awkward, 
 angular girl had developed into a lovely and grace- 
 ful woman — ^was powerless to draw him to her 
 turbulent side ; and each new defection on his 
 part made the fire of her jealousy flame more and 
 more fiercely. 
 
 When in her rage she informed the Emperor that 
 her husband had the audacity to take another 
 man's wife to a hotel bearing her own name (the 
 " Hotel Stephanie "), Francis Joseph refused to 
 listen to her ; and when she appealed to her father 
 for permission to return to Brussels, all his answer 
 was the curt telegram, "It is your duty to stay 
 with your husband." 
 
A FATAL PASSION 127 
 
 Thus baffled she determined, before taking any 
 further step, to get conclusive evidence of her 
 husband's infidelity. She bribed his servants ; 
 employed private inquiry agents to shadow him ; 
 and herself played the spy on his movements. On 
 one occasion, when she heard that he was at the 
 house of a beautiful actress, she drove there in a 
 state carriage, which she left at the door with 
 instructions to the coachman to wait until the 
 Prince was ready to return, thus proclaiming his 
 infidelity to the world and covering him with 
 humiliation. On another occasion she paid a 
 surprise visit to Mayerling, forcing her way to his 
 apartment, from which, after a terrible scene, she 
 was forcibly ejected and the door locked in her face. 
 
 Such conduct as this, as was inevitable, had the 
 effect of making Rudolf more and more defiant and 
 reckless. He no longer took any pains to conceal 
 his amours ; he plunged deeper and deeper into 
 dissipation in the lowest of company ; one debauch 
 succeeded another, and Monsieur de Weindel tells 
 us, " the venerable trees of the Prater often saw by 
 night the mad dances of princes, nobles, cabmen 
 and their companions of the other sex, in the 
 most primitive of costumes." Two years of such 
 debauchery, during which time Rudolf rarely went 
 to bed sober, played such havoc with a constitution 
 already sapped by morphia and ether, that he was 
 a physical and moral wreck, ripe for the tragedy 
 
128 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 that was so soon to close his misspent and ill-fated 
 life. 
 
 Matters were now hurrying swiftly to this last 
 tragic act, the opening scene of which was a " Polish 
 Ball " at which the Crown Prince first set eyes on 
 the fatal beauty of Marie Vetschera, granddaughter 
 of the wealthy Greek financier, Baltazzi. " Tall, 
 slender and willowy, with graceful contours and a 
 beautiful neck, she had a delicate pale amber face, 
 with great dusky, voluptuous eyes, under the night 
 of hair so silky and dark that it looked almost blue 
 in the brilliant light. She had the splendour of 
 twenty-five combined with the spring-like freshness 
 of her eighteen years." 
 
 Such was the radiant vision that arrested the 
 eyes of Rudolf as he entered the ballroom on that 
 fateful night in the year 1888, a vision more beauti- 
 ful, more compelhng than any his eyes had ever 
 seen. An introduction by his friend. Prince Philip 
 of Coburg, was an easy matter ; and, during the 
 whole of the evening, the Prince danced exclusively 
 with the new divinity under the blazing eyes of his 
 wife, Stephanie. Other meetings quickly followed, 
 and it was not long before all Vienna knew of the 
 infatuation of the Prince for the Grecian beauty ; 
 and when, a few weeks later, Rudolf went to 
 London for Queen Victoria's Jubilee, Vienna was 
 shocked to learn that the Baroness Marie had 
 gone before to meet him there. 
 
A FATAL PASSION 129 
 
 Never was man more hopelessly caught in 
 woman's toils than the Austrian Prince in those 
 of the Greek siren, whose ambition already soared 
 to a crown. She had no difficulty in persuading 
 her lover that a divorce from his shrewish wife 
 was absolutely necessary ; and she herself, it is 
 said, dictated the letter he addressed to the Pope 
 with this object. Never was a more fatal or futile 
 letter penned ; for it was referred by the Pope to 
 the Archbishop of Vienna, who in turn handed 
 it to the Emperor. 
 
 Francis Joseph had had many painful scenes with 
 his unruly son, but none so terrible as that which 
 now followed. When it was concluded, Rudolf 
 "left the room with pale, distorted features and 
 trembUng hands and made for his own apartments, 
 staggering like a drunken man. A quarter of an 
 hour later he was found in a dead faint in his 
 study." 
 
 Of what took place at this momentous and, as it 
 proved, tragic interview it is probable that nothing 
 certain will ever be known. It is said, although the 
 authority is as doubtful as the probabihty, that 
 Francis Joseph made the starthng revelation to 
 his son that he himself was Marie Vetschera's 
 father, who was thus the sister of her lover. There 
 is doubtless much more truth in the assertion that 
 the Emperor insisted on his son's promise to break 
 off absolutely all relations with his enslaver. 
 
130 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 What we do know is that, on the following 
 morning, Rudolf, after canceUing all his engage- 
 ments for the day and despatching a long letter to 
 Marie Vetschera, was driven by his favourite cab- 
 man, Bratfisch, to Mayerling, leaving behind him 
 messages asking his friends, Philip of Coburg and 
 Count Hoy OS, to join him there. 
 
 What the letter addressed to the Baroness con- 
 tained we do not know, but we know that on receiv- 
 ing it she hailed a cab, and after calUng at a cutler's 
 shop in the Wiedner-Haupt-strasse, to purchase a 
 razor, she followed her lover to Mayerling, where 
 they were shortly joined by Rudolf's boon com- 
 panions, the Prince and Count Hoyos. The follow- 
 ing morning " two dead bodies were found on a 
 disordered bed, Rudolf with his head blown off, 
 Marie Vetschera strangled." 
 
 What really happened on that tragic night 
 of 29th January 1889 ? Professor Hoffmann, 
 Austria's greatest surgeon, gave as his verdict that 
 the Crown Prince had died by his own hand — 
 " having blown his brains out with a sporting rifle." 
 The Crown Princess Stephanie is credited with the 
 belief that he was accidentally murdered by one of 
 several soldiers sent to Mayerling to carry off the 
 Baroness — shot dead in a struggle to rescue her 
 from the hands of her would-be abductors. Theories 
 and descriptions, by the score, of the happenings 
 on that night of mystery have been given to the 
 
A FATAL PASSION 131 
 
 world ; but the truth is still veiled by an impene- 
 trable darkness. 
 
 Perhaps the most plausible and authoritative 
 account is that given by Monsieur de Weindel, 
 which, he says, was given to him by an Austrian 
 Court official with exclvisive sources of information. 
 This account has at least an aspect of strong 
 probabihty, and, such as it is, I reproduce it. 
 
 According, then, to Monsieur de Weindel, the 
 evening was spent by the quartet like any other 
 evening — ^the men drinking heavily of champagne 
 and spirits until the Prince was led to bed in 
 an advanced state of intoxication. A shooting 
 expedition had been arranged for the following 
 morning ; but when Rudolf's valet, Loschek, 
 knocked at his master's door at half-past five there 
 was no response. Louder knocks were equally 
 ineffective ; and Loschek, fearing at last that 
 something was wrong, summoned Prince Philip 
 and Hoyos, who, after further fruitless calls, burst 
 open the door, to find the two occupants of the 
 room dead — ^the Prince shockingly mutilated and 
 the bed deluged with blood. 
 
 Such was the sight that met the eyes of the 
 Prince's companions. What had preceded this 
 terrible tragedy Monsieur de Weindel explains thus. 
 When Rudolf awoke from the stupor of his intoxica- 
 tion, to find Marie by his side, he reaUsed with 
 horror that he had broken his vow to his father to 
 
132 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 have no further relations with the Baroness. He 
 was disgraced as an officer and a gentleman. He 
 must have awakened her to inform her that he was 
 going to leave her, that he would never see her 
 again. Marie Vetschera must have drawn him to 
 herself again, and, finding that he was proof against 
 all her seductions, must have attacked him furiously 
 with the razor which she had bought in Vienna. 
 
 " Mad with pain Rudolf threw himself on his 
 mistress and strangled her ; then, taking up his 
 sporting rifle and putting a drop of water on the 
 charge to make its explosion more shattering, 
 he put the muzzle to his mouth and blew his head 
 completely to pieces." 
 
 In pity let us draw the curtain over those scenes 
 of anguish when the tragic news was broken to his 
 parents — ^news which, for one at least, his heart- 
 broken mother, laid her life in ruins, and made the 
 assassin's blow that fell nine years later a welcome 
 release from the burden of a sorrow too great to 
 bear. To-day the body of the ill-fated Rudolf, 
 carried back to Vienna in a plain two-horsed hearse, 
 escorted by half-a-dozen gamekeepers carrying 
 torches, rests among his ancestors in the funeral 
 vault of the Hapsburgs, while the woman whose 
 love crowned his life with tragedy sleeps her last 
 sleep in the Vetschera vault in Bohemia. " The 
 golden gleam of the Imperial crown had never 
 lighted up the black night of her hair." 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 " THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS " 
 
 " Had I been a man my temperament would have 
 made me lead a life of licentiousness ; and had I 
 not felt in me the strength to resist the ardour of 
 my nature I should have married. But, by the 
 grace of God, I had the strength to deprive myself 
 of the most legitimate pleasures, and, influenced 
 by my natural aversion to marriage, I remained 
 single." 
 
 Thus naively wrote Christina, Queen of Sweden, 
 at a time when every Court in Europe was holding 
 up hands of affected horror at her indecencies 
 and immoralities, and when she was conducting 
 a liaison with Cardinal Azzolino almost under the 
 eyes of the Pope himself. 
 
 Not even in the person of Catherine the Great, 
 supreme stateswoman and crowned courtesan, has 
 the world seen a woman so contradictory and in- 
 scrutable as this daughter of Gustavus Adolphus, 
 who for half-a -century was the wonder and scandal 
 of Europe, and who has left a memory sullied by 
 unbridled excesses, culminating in one of the most 
 horrible crimes in history. There was little in 
 Christina's heritage to explain the moral obUquity 
 133 
 
184 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 which marred her life almost to its last day. Her 
 father was one of Sweden's most worthy kings, a 
 man brave in war, skilful in statecraft and finding 
 his chief recreation in his study. Her mother, it 
 is true, was weak and vain, extravagant and 
 addicted to low ccnpany ; but no charge has ever 
 been brought against her moral character. Her 
 strange alternations between foolish pleasures and 
 piety punctuated by maudlin tears, however, point 
 to an unbalanced mind, which she probably trans- 
 mitted to her daughter. 
 
 Nor was there anything in Christina's earlier 
 years to suggest the almost insane excesses and 
 eccentricities which were later to scandalise the 
 world. As a child she was a prodigy of learning, 
 only happy in the company of her beloved books, 
 or racing on her pony at breakneck speed across 
 country, with streaming hair, flushed cheeks and 
 sparkling eyes. Amazing tales are told of the 
 future Queen's precocity — how, while she was still 
 in short frocks, she could speak half-a-dozen 
 languages, and could write Greek and Latin verses 
 with the skill of a university professor ; how her 
 studies ranged from the stars to abstruse branches 
 of science ; and how she would confound the 
 cleverest men in Sweden by her knowledge of 
 their pet subjects. 
 
 Before she had reached young womanhood the 
 fame of her learning drew savants from all parts 
 
^Za£€^ny VJmM^'y 
 
 ^y/'Z/. 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 135 
 
 of Europe to her Court — ^all of them to echo 
 Descartes' eulogium : " There is nothing nobler, 
 finer, more god-Uke and divine than this young 
 girl, who carries the wdsdom of Plato on her Ups 
 and gifts of gold in her hands . ' ' She was christened 
 the " Muse of the North," and in her intellectual 
 Court Pascal rubbed shoulders with Labruyere and 
 Menage, and Hugo Grotius with Salvius Meibon, 
 all equally eager to pay homage to her wonderful 
 gifts. 
 
 Such was Sweden's girl-Queen (who was but a 
 child of six when she came to her queendom) be- 
 fore she had reached woman's estate, and before 
 the world had any suspicion of the true character 
 which underlay this brilliant exterior of accomplish- 
 ments. But already she had begun to startle and 
 shock her courtiers by revelations of a very different 
 aspect of her personahty. She began to affect 
 man's attire and show a strong contempt for her 
 own sex. She appeared in the streets of her 
 capital, strutting in a long overcoat, wig and hat, 
 and carr5dng a sword. She assumed a masculine 
 voice and gait, and " swore like a trooper " ; and 
 in short played her mascuHne role so perfectly 
 that, before long, it began to be whispered, " there 
 is nothing of the woman in the Queen save her 
 sex." 
 
 She loved especially to talk to men on subjects 
 which are rarely mentioned between the sexes. 
 
186 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Thus a writer tells us that one of his friends used 
 to entertain her with stories of an unsavoury nature 
 with which she was greatly delighted, and adds, 
 " yet, because there were some of his narrations 
 which did sometimes require more modest expres- 
 sions than the genuine or natural, chiefly before a 
 royal majesty and in a maid's presence, as she 
 saw him going about his circumlocutions and seek- 
 ing civil terms, she would boldly speak out the 
 words, though they were never so unseemly, which 
 modesty forhads me to write here." 
 
 Nor did she by any means confine such ex- 
 hibitions to her own Court ; for, we learn, " when 
 she visited Fontainebleau in her half-male attire, 
 she appeared to some of the ladies like a pretty and 
 rather forward boy, who was addicted to swearing ; 
 flung himself into an arm-chair and disposed of his 
 legs in a way that shocked the not very scrupulous 
 dames of the Court." But these same ladies 
 smothered Christina with kisses, which prompted 
 her to say : " What a rage they have for kissing. 
 I verily believe they take me for a gentleman ! " 
 
 On the rare occasions when she attended church 
 she would use two chairs, one of purple velvet, in 
 which she was seated, and one in front of her, over 
 the back of which she would lean her head or arms, 
 thinking of divers matters ; and if the sermon was 
 too long or too dull she would begin to play with 
 her spaniels, who were always her companions, or 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 137 
 
 would rattle her fan on the back of the chair before 
 her, as a signal to the preacher to bring his homily 
 to an end. 
 
 And with this strange disregard for decency was 
 aUied an absolute disregard for her own appearance. 
 Her linen, we learn, was ragged and much torn ; 
 she never combed her hair but once a week, and 
 sometimes left it untouched for a fortnight ; and, 
 as for cleanliness, " Wash ! " she once exclaimed ; 
 " that's all very well for people who have nothing 
 else to do." 
 
 Her life, in fact, from this early period was 
 one long defiance, not only of convention, but 
 of elementary decency. She exhibited an utter 
 contempt both for her dignity as Queen and 
 the modesty due to her sex ; she was devoid of all 
 sense of morality and revelled in proving it to the 
 world. And as she grew to womanhood her body 
 seems to have assumed a form as grotesque as her 
 mind. " Her figure," to quote a contemporary 
 description, penned by no flattering hand, " is 
 without symmetry ; she is round-shouldered and 
 her hips are out of line with the rest of her body ; 
 she limps and has bad sight ; her laugh is ugly ; 
 her face, when she is amused, wrinkling up Hke a 
 piece of parchment when thrown on the fire. One 
 breast is much lower than the other, so that the 
 neck on one side seems quite flat. Her mouth is 
 not ugly as long as she is careful not to laugh ; 
 
188 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 she neglects her teeth, and it is not pleasant to 
 approach too near her. 
 
 " Her style of dress is as extraordinary as her 
 person ; for, in her wish to make herself conspicu- 
 ous from the rest of her sex, she wears only short 
 petticoats and a tight-fitting jacket, a man's hat 
 and collar, or else a handkerchief round her throat 
 like a horseman starting on an expedition ... in 
 short, to see her going along buttoned up to the 
 chin, in black wig, her short skirt and her humped 
 shoulders, you would take her for a monkey dressed 
 up." 
 
 And yet this woman, with the crooked soul in a 
 crooked body, never had any lack of lovers. Her 
 hand was sought in marriage by many a high-placed 
 lover. Her cousin, Charles Augustus, was, for 
 years, eager to place a wedding ring on her finger ; 
 the kings of Spain and Poland laid their crowns at 
 her feet ; princes from Denmark, margraves from 
 Germany, the Great Elector himself, all came to 
 Sweden to win her hand. But to one and all she 
 turned a cold shoulder. " Influenced," as she 
 says, " by my natural aversion to marriage, I 
 remained single." 
 
 But she was always more complaisant to the 
 lovers who asked nothing of her but her smiles and 
 favours ; and of these she never had any lack, 
 almost to that last day, when, crowned and sceptred 
 and decked in her funeral robes of gold and brocade. 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 189 
 
 she was laid in her coffin under the shadow of the 
 Vatican. 
 
 One of her earhest favourites was Bourdelet, 
 barber's son and quack, a good-looking adventurer 
 whose plausible tongue and captivating manner had 
 carried him successfully through most of the Courts 
 of Europe. When Christina was, as she fancied, 
 brought to death's door by a serious illness, 
 Bourdelet, whose fame as a healer had travelled 
 to Sweden, was summoned to her bedside, and 
 dosed her so effectually with his nostrums that she 
 quickly recovered her health. He had rescued her 
 from the grave, she declared ; and it was not long 
 before gratitude to the worker of such a miracle 
 gave place to affection for the handsomest and 
 most fascinating man she had ever met. 
 
 It was Bourdelet, it is said, who bade her leave 
 her books, and, by initiating her into a new life of 
 frivolity and pleasure, started her on the career of 
 profligacy which was to shock Europe. She flung 
 herself into a vortex of gaiety which made the 
 grave professors and men of letters who had 
 hitherto been her favourite companions gasp with 
 amazement ; and when they tried to lead her back 
 to more sedate paths she laughed in their faces, 
 and mockingly invited them to dance with her. 
 Masked balls, banquets, theatricals, midnight 
 revels followed each other in quick succes- 
 sion ; and at each the Queen was the arch-spirit 
 
140 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 of gaiety. A fig for learning ; this it was to 
 live ! 
 
 As for Bourdelet, who had introduced her to a 
 world of such unexpected delights, she could not 
 do too much to show her gratitude and her affec- 
 tion. He became her chief counsellor of state as 
 well as director of revels. She showered gifts and 
 honours on him, and frowned severely on his 
 detractors. As for the barber's son, thus raised 
 almost to a throne and assuming airs of arrogance, 
 he was soon the most hated man in Sweden. The 
 nobles detested him for his insufferable patronage ; 
 the doctors, for his cure of the Queen ; the clergy, 
 because of their well-grounded fears that he was 
 tampering with her faith ; and the populace at 
 large for the oppressive taxes which paid for the 
 extravagances he had inaugurated. So bitter at 
 last was the feeling against the upstart favourite 
 that he dared not venture into the streets without 
 an armed escort, for fear of assassination ; and 
 even Christina recognised that she must part with 
 him, if only to save his life. Perhaps she herself 
 had grown weary of his vulgar airs and pretensions 
 and was ready to replace Mm. She had been heard 
 to admit that he was " eaten up with pride," and 
 that she had only waited to see how far his 
 pretensions would carry him. 
 
 And thus we may imagine that it was with a 
 feeling of relief she saw him start, in a royal coach 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 141 
 
 and with ten thousand Hvres of her money in his 
 pocket, on his way to France, and the valuable 
 prebendary she had procured for him. A few hours 
 later, chancing to find one of his letters in her 
 pocket, she " put it to her nose and exclaimed : 
 ' How it smells of medicine ' ; whereupon one of 
 her attendants answered, ' It reeks of pestilence,' 
 and she immediately threw it away unopened." 
 
 Bourdelet thus dismissed, Christina was soon 
 dallying with Pimentel, Spain's handsome, courtly 
 and crafty ambassador at her Court, who succeeded 
 to Bourdelet 's place, and also to his legacy of hatred ; 
 for after a brief reign Christina was compelled to 
 send him too packing, his departure hastened by 
 the jeering and shouts of glee of a mob of thousands 
 gathered before his house to gloat over his downfall. 
 Before he left, however, the infatuated Queen gave 
 him a superb diamond ring worth fifteen thousand 
 thalers, begging him to keep it in memory of the 
 " Moorish lady " — ^the part she had taken in a ballet 
 on the eve of his departure. She kept him with 
 her, it is said, the whole night until an hour before 
 he began his journey ; and every post brought her 
 a letter from him. 
 
 To barber's son and ambassador succeeded 
 Count Magnus of Gardie, whose youth and good 
 looks, as well as the ardour of his devotion, made 
 him a welcome successor to her middle-aged lovers. 
 She made him privy councillor and steward of her 
 
142 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 household, gave him a regal suite of rooms adjoining 
 her own, and raised him to such a pinnacle of power 
 that, for a time, he was king in all but name. And 
 while he was thus high in her favour, her lover in 
 the eyes of the world, she denied that he was more 
 to her than any other of her ministers. " Nothing 
 in the world could be more untrue than that the 
 Count is my favourite," she wrote. "It is all a 
 devised fable. I never had a lover. What lies ! 
 Count Magnus has not spent more than two years 
 in all at my Court and has never influenced me as 
 regards either my likes or dislikes." 
 
 When the gallant young Conde came on the scene, 
 prince of soldiers and gallants, she picked a quarrel 
 with the Count, called him a " drunkard and a 
 Har " to his face, and sent him in the wake of 
 his predecessors. Thus lover followed lover, each 
 wearying her in turn, until, sick of her queendom 
 and her subjects' importunities that she should 
 marry, she resigned her crown in favour of the 
 cousin whose suit she had so long resisted ; and, 
 attired as a man, started on her adventurous tour 
 of Europe, with a retinue of lovers in her train. 
 
 Never in the world's history has there been a 
 royal progress so remarkable. Through Denmark, 
 France and Italy she journeyed in a score of 
 disguises, revelling in the adventures which each 
 day brought her. Into the principal towns she 
 made her entry clad in gorgeous apparel and riding 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 143 
 
 astride, to the plaudits of the thousands gathered 
 to catch a gUmpse of Sweden's notorious queen ; 
 and everywhere she would turn her reception into 
 ridicule by making grimaces at obsequious mayors, 
 or interrupting a loyal address with a peal of 
 laughter or a volley of oaths. 
 
 At the various courts, where she was received 
 and entertained as a queen, she shocked even the 
 least prudish by her defiance of the most element- 
 ary laws of decent behaviour — " swearing like 
 a trooper," as the Grande Demoiselle records, 
 " throwing her legs about, putting first one and 
 then the other over the arms of her chair, or flinging 
 them up on the back of a neighbouring chair and 
 altogether exhibiting them a little too freely." 
 
 At Innsbruck she was formally and solemnly 
 admitted into the Catholic Church ; and when, on 
 the evening of the same day, the Archduke, her 
 host, provided a masque for her entertainment, 
 she said to him, with characteristic profanity : " It 
 is but proper that you should entertain me with a 
 comedy to-night, since I amused you with a farce 
 this morning." A little later she was in Rome, 
 turning the heads of the college of cardinals, with 
 one of the greatest of them as her lover. What 
 was the secret of the power she still possessed to 
 fascinate it is impossible to say ; for this is the 
 picture drawn of her by the Grande Demoiselle, 
 who saw her in bed : 
 
144 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " A tallow candle stood on the table ; a towel 
 twisted round her shaven head served as a nightcap ; 
 her nightgown, which had no collar, was tied by a 
 large knot of flaming yellow ribbon. In this state 
 she was not beautiful." 
 
 It is not possible here to follow the " shaven 
 adventuress," as some derisively dubbed her, 
 through her strangely romantic rambles over the 
 face of Europe — ^hobnobbing with peasants one 
 day, feasting with a king the next, accompanied by 
 her train of lovers, with valets to play the part of 
 lady's-maids ; dazzling all by her clever tongue, 
 amusing them by her eccentricities and shocking 
 them by her defiance of all decency. 
 
 It was at Fontainebleau that her erratic progress 
 came to an abrupt and tragic conclusion, when 
 in the galerie des cerfs of the castle, her lover, 
 Monaldeschi, was brutally done to death at her 
 bidding by hired assassins, his shrieks of anguish 
 reaching her ears as she sat gossiping and laughing 
 with her ladies in a neighbouring room. To all his 
 appeals for mercy she had turned a deaf ear. He 
 had betrayed her, she said ; and he must die. 
 Turning to Pere Lebel, whom she had summoned 
 to act as confessor to the doomed man, she said : 
 " I will leave this man with you, father ; prepare 
 him for death and have a care of his soul." 
 
 The news of this crowning infamy sent a thrill 
 of horror through Europe. Christina was branded 
 
"THE SHAVEN ADVENTURESS" 145 
 
 " murderess," " an inhuman fiend." The world 
 that had laughed at her eccentricities, and professed 
 to be shocked at her immorality, was now united 
 in a common loathing of her. For thirty years 
 she lived the life of a pariah, finding her only 
 pleasure in miserable intrigues of state and equally 
 sordid love affairs, until at last death came to her 
 rescue, in Rome, in her sixty-fourth year. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 
 
 Of the dauphines of France Marie Antoinette was 
 the most beautiful, as Marie Stuart was the sweetest 
 in disposition ; but neither the Scottish nor the 
 Austrian princess possessed such a combination of 
 good looks, charm, vivacity and winspmeness as 
 made Marie Adelaide of Savoy the most attractive 
 and lovable of them all. 
 
 As a child, at the Court of her father, Victor 
 Amadeus, Duke of Savoy, she won all hearts. 
 " She is," wrote her governess, the Marquise de 
 Saint Germain, to a friend, " the sweetest, merriest, 
 most irresistible little fairy you can picture ; brim- 
 ful of pranks, always getting into mischief, but 
 so adorable in all her pretty ways that, however 
 naughty she is, it is impossible to be cross with her 
 when she flings hex little arms round my neck and 
 simply covers me with kisses." Even the grimmest 
 courtier could not resist a smile and a pat on the 
 cheek, although he knew that the moment his 
 back was turned the little madcap would probably 
 be making faces at him. 
 
 If ever a child was born for the joy of life and for 
 conquest it was this fascinating little princess, who 
 
 146 
 
A DAtJPHINE OF FRANCE 147 
 
 to all her other charms added the promise of a rare 
 loveUness. Read what Louis XIV., her great- 
 uncle, wrote of her to Madame de Maintenon when 
 he first saw her as a chUd of ten : " She has the 
 best grace and the prettiest figure I have ever seen ; 
 eyes very bright and very beautiful, the lashes 
 black and admirable ; complexion very even, white 
 and red, all one could wish ; the finest blonde hair 
 that was ever seen, and a great mass of it. Her 
 mouth is rosy, the lips full, the teeth white, her 
 hands well made, but the colour of her age." 
 
 Such was Marie Adelaide of Savoy, before even 
 she had reached the threshold of the beauty which 
 was to earn for her the enthusiastic description, 
 " the most beauteous of all the dauphines " — as 
 indeed she was, for Marie Antoinette was not bom 
 until nearly sixty years after the Savoy princess 
 wore her wedding veil. 
 
 When Marie Adelaide was bom, one December 
 day in 1685, it was no happy home that saw her 
 cradling. Her mother, Anne Marie d'Orleans, 
 niece o* the " Sim King," had been sent, a very 
 unwilling bride of fourteen, to the Duke of Savoy 
 as a pledge of his allegiance to France ; and from 
 the day of her arrival had been doomed to unhappi- 
 ness and neglect with a husband who not only 
 treated her with indifference but flaimted in her 
 face his scandalous amovirs. 
 
 Even the coming of the baby princess, although 
 
148 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 it brought solace to the mother, only served to 
 widen the gulf between the Duchess and her 
 husband, who felt himself aggrieved that she had 
 not provided an heir to his dukedom. But happily 
 some good fairy had dowered the child with a bright, 
 buoyant nature which the tears and sighs of her 
 unhappy mother and the coldness of a heartless 
 father were powerless to quench. 
 
 But Marie Adelaide was not destined to remain 
 long in the gloomy atmosphere of the Savoy Court. 
 Long before she reached her eleventh birthday 
 her hand was pledged, as a condition in a peace 
 treaty between France and Savoy, to the Due de 
 Bourgogne, her kinsman, and grandson and second 
 heir to Louis XIV. ; and a few weeks later the 
 Comte de Tesse was sent to Turin to arrange the 
 terms of the nuptials. One can picture the excite- 
 ment of the child-bride as, peeping through a 
 palace window by her mother's side, she watched 
 the coming of the man who represented her future 
 husband. Then followed days of consultation 
 between her parents and the Comte, who sent long 
 descriptions of his bride-to-be to the Due de 
 Bourgogne, with a portrait of her specially painted ; 
 and even, so punctihously did he discharge his 
 mission, sent to Paris one of her bodices and a 
 ribbon giving the measurements of her figure. 
 
 " The more I see of the young Pripcess," he wrote 
 to Louis, " the more I am convinced that she is 
 
A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 149 
 
 strong and has a good constitution. Whenever 
 she sees me she blushes with charming modesty, 
 as if in seeing me she is reminded of the Due de 
 Bourgogne." So anxious was Marie Adelaide, 
 child though she was, that the arrangements for 
 her marriage should run smoothly, that, when one 
 day an Austrian diplomatist, the Comte de Mansf eld, 
 arrived at the palace, she exclaimed to her mother : 
 " Mon Dieu ! What has he come for ? You will 
 see, father will listen to him, as he always does, 
 and I shall have to marry some horrid Austrian ! 
 He has no business here," she added, stamping her 
 foot. " I wish you would send him away." 
 
 But the Comte de Mansfeld had come too late 
 on the scene : the marriage was already arranged 
 and the contract was quickly signed. The Princess 
 was to become the Due's bride at twelve ; her 
 dowry was to be two hundred thousand crowns ; 
 and Louis XIV. pledged himself to give her fifty 
 thousand crowns' worth of jewels. On her trousseau 
 fifty-four thousand francs were spent, including, 
 it is interesting to note, twenty-four thousand 
 francs for linen and lace ; thirteen thousand for 
 silver and brocade ; nine thousand five hundred 
 for trimmings, and three thousand for embroidered 
 skirts. On i6th September 1696 the wedding 
 contract was signed with impressive ceremonial in 
 the presence of the entire Court. " I wish with 
 all my heart," the Comte de Tesse wrote to Louis, 
 
150 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " that your Majesty could have seen the young 
 Princess making her curtseys and signing boldly, 
 modestly and with dignity." 
 
 In the following month the child-bride, who had 
 still only counted ten summers, said good-bye to 
 her Savoy home, and started on her stately progress 
 to France and her unseen bridegroom — ^riding in 
 a purple-draped coach drawn by eight horses, and 
 followed by a long procession of gorgeous equipages 
 containing her ladies, her maids of honour, her 
 doctors, and other attendants to the number of 
 six hundred. Arrived by slow stages at Pont-de- 
 Beauvoisin, the Princess was greeted by a brilliant 
 train of officials sent by Louis for her further 
 escort ; and at Montargis Louis himself received 
 the bride. 
 
 " Madame," said Louis, as he advanced to the 
 Princess's carriage, and, before she had time to 
 alight, took her in his arms and lifted her to the 
 ground, " Madame, I have waited for you with 
 great impatience," to which Marie Adelaide replied 
 by kissing the King's hand and smilingly assuring 
 him that this was the happiest and proudest 
 moment in her life . No wonder Louis was charmed 
 by the grace and courtesy, the mingling of defer- 
 ence and childlike trust with which the little bride 
 gave him greeting, or that he sent such glowing 
 accounts of her to Madame de Maintenon. 
 
 " I led her to her room, through the crowd," he 
 
A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 151 
 
 wrote, " letting her be seen from time to time by 
 holding the torches closer to her face. She bore 
 the march and the lights with grace and modesty. 
 The more I see of the Princess, the more satisfied 
 I am. Her air is noble and her manners polished 
 and agreeable. I have pleasure in telling you so 
 much that is good regarding her ; for I find that, 
 without partiality or flattery, I can do so, and that 
 indeed I am obUged to do so — I forgot to say that 
 I have seen her play at Spihkins in a charming 
 manner ! " 
 
 Arrived at last at Fontainebleau, to the welcome 
 of cheering thousands, Marie Adelaide found herself 
 transported to a Court little less dreary than the 
 one she had left behind her. The first glimpse of 
 her future husband shattered all her rosy dreams ; 
 for in place of the handsome prince she had pictured 
 she saw a dwarfish, humpbacked youth, " with a 
 shocking mouth and a sickly skin," a boy of gloomy 
 moods, shrinking from gaiety and finding a refuge 
 in a morbid piety — a creature altogether repulsive, 
 against whose awkward advances every fibre of her 
 body rebelled. Fortunately this unattractive lover 
 was only permitted by the King to. see his future 
 wife once a fortnight. 
 
 Nor was this the only disillusion that awaited 
 her. There were no young people at the Court with 
 whom she could romp and play, with the exception 
 of her fianWs brothers, the Dues of Anjou and 
 
152 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Berri, whom she was only allowed to see once a 
 month. Her very meals were to be eaten in solitary 
 state, and only such ladies as the King approved 
 were permitted even to speak to her. Picture the 
 terrible, soul-crushing isolation of this child of 
 sunshine and gaiety in her new and splendid prison- 
 house, with no distractions beyond her lessons in 
 writing, dancing and harpsichord-playing, varied 
 by occasional visits to the convent school of Saint- 
 C}^:, where, in the regulation costume of long cloak 
 and brown skirt and muslin cap, she was allowed 
 to join the classes of the pupils. 
 
 Fortunately she found a kind and sympathetic 
 friend in Madame de Maintenon, the King's homely, 
 middle-aged wife, into whose affections she quickly 
 won her way, and who was devoted to her winsome 
 little charge. " Your Royal Highness," Madame 
 de Maintenon wrote to the Duchess of Savoy, 
 " will scarcely believe how much the King is de- 
 lighted with her ; he told me yesterday he had 
 to restrain his feelings, lest his happiness should 
 appear too excessive. The Princess is polite to a 
 degree that does not allow her to say anything 
 disagreeable. Yesterday I wished to decline her 
 caresses, and push her off by telling her that I was 
 too old ; but she assured me, ' Oh, not so old ! ' 
 When the King left the room she ran to embrace 
 me. 
 
 " She then made me sit down and, placing herself 
 
A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 153 
 
 almost on my knees, she said to me, ' Mamma has 
 charged me to give you a thousand demonstrations 
 of her friendship, and to beg yours for herself. 
 Pray instruct me well in everything whereby I may 
 please the King.' Those were her words, madame ; 
 but the gay, the sweet, the graceful air with which 
 they were uttered is not to be expressed in a 
 letter." 
 
 A year of such dull, decorous but not altogether 
 unhappy life, and the little Princess was standing 
 at the altar with her uncouth bridegroom — ^the 
 bride in wedding array of cloth-of-silver and 
 jewellery of rubies and pearls, the Due in a gold 
 embroidered suit of black velvet, with a mantle 
 of cloth-of-silver. The wedding ceremony was 
 followed by a state banquet and a display of fire- 
 works, after which an adjournment was made to 
 the apartments of the new Duchesse de Bourgogne, 
 furnished with a splendid new bed, upholstered 
 with green velvet embroidered with gold. At 
 the coucher, the King and Queen of England, the 
 principal wedding-guests, were chosen to go through 
 the usual formahty of presenting the nuptial night 
 garments. Such was the quaint ceremonial of 
 the time ; but the wedded pair were still, Louis 
 decided, " too young for love-making" ; and, the 
 formahties ended, the bride was conducted to her 
 own apartment. 
 
 Her new condition brought with it a very 
 
154 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 welcome revolution in her life. Louis, whose heart 
 she had completely captured, now abandoned 
 his Puritan habits for her sake. Masquerades, 
 spectacles, operas were now provided in brilliant 
 sequence for her pleasure. Even lotteries with 
 high stakes, and card games, which he had long 
 forsworn, were revived. He lavished costly 
 presents of jewellery on her, and was never happier 
 than when ministering to her amusement or her 
 vanity. 
 
 Never did royal court undergo such a trans- 
 formation. There were balls every day, we are 
 told ; fete succeeded fete, each eclipsing its pre- 
 decessor in splendour ; there were state banquets ; 
 masquerades in which the Duchesse appeared, now 
 as Flora, now as a dairymaid, as a Spanish beauty 
 or a Sultana of the East ; suppers at which the 
 revels lasted until dawn ; and nights of wild 
 gambling. And into this vortex of pleasure Marie 
 Adelaide flung herself with a tireless zest, until 
 Louis, when once he heard that she had spent the 
 night at the card-table with some of the most 
 dissolute of his courtiers, exclaimed in despair: 
 " Is not a dinner, a cavalcade, a hunt, a collation 
 enough for one day, that she must stay up all night 
 gambhngin questionable company ? " 
 
 When she grew a little weary of such dissipa- 
 tions the Duchesse would transfer her irrepressible 
 spirits to Versailles, where she and her ladies would 
 
A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 155 
 
 keep themselves amused by such childish games as 
 blindman's buff and hide-and-seek ; making sugar 
 cakes and improvising banquets ; feeding their 
 birds and pets, riding donkey-races or playing 
 practical jokes on each other. On summer nights 
 " she arranged walks or river-parties. Sometimes 
 she wandered till early morning in the gardens or 
 plantations, never a serious thought entering her 
 pretty head." 
 
 And in this programme of dissipation love- 
 making inevitably had a part ; for the Princess, 
 who had her father's hot blood in her veins, was 
 not the one to deny herself this supreme gratifica- 
 tion of her vanity, and minister to her pleasure. 
 Among the many lovers drawn to her by her beauty 
 and witchery, the most favoured was undoubtedly 
 the handsome young Marquis de Nangis, a man 
 skilled in all the arts of gallantry and one of the 
 most dangerous Lotharios in France. Stories are 
 told of secret meetings between the Princess and 
 her Marquis lover ; of long moonlight rambles 
 together in the woods of Versailles ; of whisperings 
 heard in remote arbours. 
 
 And Nangis had many rivals in the Princess's 
 favour. -^ There was the Marquis de Maulevrier, 
 married to the Comte de Tesse's daughter, a gay 
 cavalier with whom she conducted a flagrant 
 flirtation under the very eyes of the King and her 
 moody husband ; and when Maulevrier was packed 
 
156 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 off to Spain by his indignant father-in-law, his 
 place was taken by the witty, good-looking Abbe 
 de Polignac, whose reverend office was no obstacle 
 to such love-making as set every tongue at Court 
 a-wagging. As for Maulevrier, when he returned 
 to France to find himself supplanted, his passion 
 assumed such an extravagant and dangerous form 
 that it was necessary to place him under restraint, 
 until one day, when his keeper's back was turned, 
 he flung himself out of a window and the life was 
 dashed out of him. 
 
 But such love adventures as these probably 
 never passed beyond the bounds of the indiscreet ; 
 and Maulevrier's tragic end seems to have cured her 
 of all desire to win the homage of man. To her 
 ill-favoured husband, although love was an im- 
 possibility, she at least gave loyalty. She became 
 the mother of three children by him, one of whom 
 lived only a few months ; another, as many years ; 
 while the third succeeded to Louis's crown, a 
 weakling of five, to become one of the most vicious 
 kings France has ever had. 
 
 In spite of her feverish pursuit of pleasure and 
 her buoyancy of spirit, Marie Adelaide knew little 
 of happiness during the remaining years of her short 
 life. The loss of her first -bom was a lasting grief 
 to her. A year later she wrote to her grandmother, 
 " If we do notH;ake all the sorrows of this life from 
 God I do not know what would become of us. I 
 
A DAUPHINE OF FRANCE 15T 
 
 think He wants to draw me to Him by overwhelm- 
 ing me with every sort of grief. My health suffers 
 greatly, but that is the least of my troubles." 
 
 Another heavy trouble was the war which broke 
 out between the land of her birth and the land of 
 her adoption ; and to this was added the loveless- 
 ness of her wedded life. Even the new dignities 
 which were hers when her husband became Dauphin 
 and next heir to the throne brought her little 
 pleasure, although by Louis' orders she was treated 
 as though she were already Queen of France. 
 
 The conviction that she had not long to live 
 became an obsession which filled her days and 
 nights with foreboding. Her taste for frivolity 
 left her ; her gaiety was clouded ; her whole 
 character changed. " Three years before her 
 death," Elizabeth of Bavaria says, "the Dauphine 
 changed greatly for the better. Instead of being 
 utterly intractable she became polite and sensible, 
 wore a dignity suitable to her rank and no longer 
 permitted her ladies to be too familiar, dipping 
 their fingers in her platter, rolling on her bed and 
 suchlike elegant pranks." 
 
 Occasionally, however, her old spirit would flash 
 through the gloom of these later years, as when, on 
 one occasion, she began to dance before her ladies 
 and exclaimed, " Ha ! I can't help laughing ! I 
 must have my joke ! I shall be Queen and they 
 will have to reckon with me, for I shall be their 
 
158 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Queen ! " But such outbursts were only a 
 hysterical reaction from the gloom that shadowed 
 her last years. 
 
 A few months later she was attacked by a 
 virulent form of measles, against which she had not 
 the strength to fight, and after a few days' illness 
 she died, one February day in 1712. A week later 
 her husband, the Dauphin, and her second child, 
 the Due de Bretagne, followed her to the grave. 
 " All is dead here," wrote Madame de Maintenon, 
 voicing the grief of the Court and the nation. " Life 
 has fled from us. Our lost Princess was the soul 
 of everything. The Court is as wretched as myself. 
 All is blank and void ; there is no longer any joy 
 or occupation." The Princess, seductive by virtue 
 of a thousand charms, was dead in the flower of 
 her youth and beauty — she had only seen twenty- 
 six birthdays — ^and France was left to mourn the 
 most lovable of her dauphines. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 THE MAD king's BRIDE 
 
 One day in the year 1770 Caroline Matilda, Queen 
 of Denmark, took a diamond ring from her finger 
 and scratched on a window of her oratory this 
 pathetic prayer, " Lord, grant that others may 
 be great, but keep me innocent." The " Queen of 
 Tears," some have called her ; others, with equal 
 truth, have dubbed her the " Queen of Indis- 
 cretions," and both descriptions are equally apt, 
 for it was on the tide of tears that she drifted into 
 the indiscretions which sully the memory of one of 
 England's fairest and most beloved princesses. 
 
 It was a sad day in 1764 when George III. an- 
 noimced to his sister Matilda that she was affianced 
 to the Crown Prince of Denmark. The Princess, 
 we are told, burst into tears which neither caresses 
 nor scolding could chase away ; for the child (she 
 was only thirteen at the time) shrank, with a fore- 
 boding that seemed prophetic, from marriage to 
 a man so far from the home she loved and whom 
 she had never seen. " Why do they want to send 
 me away ? " she sobbed, in the arms of her aunt, 
 the Princess Amelia. " I am so happy here — ^and 
 I am so young." 
 159 
 
160 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 But at least the fate she dreaded was three years 
 distant — ^it seemed almost an eternity at thirteen ; 
 and after a few days of weeping she wiped her 
 tears away and faced the distant future with a 
 bright and smiling face. She was ideally happy 
 tending her beloved flowers in her Kew garden, 
 singing in her sweet, clear voice to the accompani- 
 ment of the harpsichord, or reciting French and 
 English verses to the admiration of the Court. 
 
 Thus two idylhc years passed ; and then, when 
 she had almost forgotten the unseen prince to 
 whom she was pledged, the blow fell. Christian, 
 who had now mounted the throne, was impatient 
 to see his English bride, and declared that he could 
 wait no longer. Matilda's too brief day of youth 
 and happiness was brought to a sudden conclu- 
 sion ; and one October evening in 1566 she was 
 led to the council chamber in St James's Palace, 
 arrayed in her bridal finery, tears streaming down 
 her white cheeks, to be wedded by proxy to the 
 Danish King. 
 
 At dawn on the following morning, in the com- 
 pany of her ladies, weeping like herself, she was 
 carried away to Harwich, on the first stage of her 
 journey to Denmark, as pitiful a bride as ever 
 went to meet an unknown fate ; and a month 
 later she arrived at Roeskild, to be greeted with 
 open arms, and every evidence of pleasure and 
 affection, by her royal husband. 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRIDE 161 
 
 No wonder the girl-queen was delighted and 
 surprised at such a reception. Her fears had 
 pictured a husband cold and unattractive ; the 
 husband who, at sight of her, rushed to embrace 
 her and cover her with kisses was a youth little 
 older than herself, comely to look upon, gallant 
 in bearing and courtly in manner. Her tears and 
 apprehensions had all been needless, after all ; 
 for she could surely fiaid happiness with one so 
 pleasing to the eye, and so obviously in love with 
 her. As for herself she had no lack of charms to 
 hold his affection ; for it is a charming portrait 
 which Reynolds painted of the " English white 
 rose " on the eve of her departure to Denmark — 
 with hair of fine-spun gold, blue eyes sweet and 
 tender, a daintily arched nose, and a complexion 
 of exquisite purity. 
 
 But Matilda was not long left to enjoy so fair 
 a dream. Christian VII., it is true, was a well- 
 seeming youth of brave and courtly exterior ; 
 but he was an epileptic, already under the cloud 
 of the madness which was soon to descend on him. 
 From early childhood, too, he had been thrown 
 into the company of low associates, under whose 
 influence he had become Uttle better than a savage. 
 " He used," De Wyzewa tells us, " to amuse him- 
 self by throwing boihng hot tea in the faces of the 
 Court ladies, and hiding under the table to pinch 
 their legs ; but he took even more pleasure in 
 
162 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 wandering about the streets of Copenhagen at 
 night, breaking windows, assaulting the passers-by 
 and scuffing with the poHce." 
 
 That Matilda's gloomy forebodings were to be 
 justified, she was soon to discover ; for almost 
 before Christian's first kisses of welcome were cold 
 on her cheeks he began to treat her with coldness 
 and aversion. On the night of the great wedding 
 ball he invaded her private apartments with a 
 crowd of his boisterous minions, and locked the 
 door when she sought to escape from their coarse 
 jokes and familiarities. And two days later he was 
 warning his courtiers not to marry, " since he had 
 found bachelor life much better fun." At his 
 coronation banquet he was drunk when he took 
 his seat by her side ; and when he saw the tears 
 in her eyes he declared aloud that he had no use 
 for a wife who was always weeping. 
 
 Thus publicly scorned and insulted, the unhappy 
 Queen was left to her solitude and sorrow, while her 
 husband sought his pleasure in the company of his 
 latest mistress, a buxom, dark-eyed young woman 
 of the people who had been a tailor's seamstress 
 before she caught the vagrant fancy of the King. 
 With " Trouser-Catherina," as this light o' love 
 was familiarly called, he would dance and flirt 
 outrageously under the very eyes of his queen, 
 as a preliminary to sall5dng forth with his boon 
 companions into the Copenhagen streets, to raid 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRIDE 163 
 
 the houses of his subjects, beat unmercifully any 
 who opposed him, and fling their furniture into 
 the streets. When Matilda became enceinte, so 
 far from showing tenderness and sympathy, he 
 jeered at her condition, while setting his com- 
 panions on to make love to her. And through all 
 this period of cruelty Matilda uttered no word of 
 protest, though her heart was breaking. She 
 submitted meekly to every indignity, and even 
 humbled herself to the extent of asking him to 
 allow her to share his low pleasures. 
 
 When, in the spring of 1768, Christian announced 
 his intention of spending a few months in England 
 and France, his queen begged vainly on her knees 
 to be allowed to accompany him. He not only 
 refused her request, with brutal emphasis ; before 
 starting on his journey he dismissed Madame de 
 Plessen, her favourite maid of honour, who was 
 her only comfort, and put in her place the sister 
 of his mistress, a woman as coarse-minded as 
 herself. 
 
 Arrived in England, Christian found himself 
 received with a very cold shoulder at his brother- 
 in-law's Court, and with enthusiasm by his capital, 
 which promptly dubbed him the " Rake of the 
 North," made merry over his eccentricities and, 
 while professing to be shocked by his depravity, 
 gave him regal entertainment. As for the King, 
 he was dehghted at the sensation he caused in the 
 
164 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 country of his queen, and determined to justify 
 his reputation by leaving none of its pleasures 
 untasted. To George's coldness he returned an 
 open contempt ; and when the Dowager Princess 
 of Wales ventured to reproach him for his treat- 
 ment of her daughter he retorted by inquiring 
 courteously after the health of Lord Bute, her 
 reputed lover. 
 
 When at last her husband returned to Copen- 
 hagen, in January 1769, Matilda was amazed to 
 find him a completely changed man. At sight of 
 her he embraced her with all the ardour of a lover^ 
 tearfully begged her to forgive him for all his un- 
 kindness ; and vowed that he loved her passion- 
 ately, and that his only object henceforth in life 
 would be to make her happy. Nor were his pro- 
 testations idle words, as she had so much cause to 
 fear ; for such was the strange revolution in 
 Christian's feelings towards his wife — ^the inex- 
 plicable working, probably of his disordered brain 
 — ^that to his last day he remained the abject slave 
 of the woman he had hitherto so shamefully 
 treated. And this change, by a curious irony of 
 Fate, was destined to be the indirect cause of the 
 tragedy of the " Queen of Tears." 
 
 Christian's love had come too late to bring any 
 happiness to his outraged wife, who now shrank 
 from the affection which would have been bliss 
 to her but two years earlier ; and the more ardent 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRIDE 165 
 
 her husband's love became, the stronger was the 
 feeling of repulsion that possessed her. To add 
 to the almost horror with which she now regarded 
 him, he had communicated to her a disease ac- 
 quired on his travels. This was the crowning 
 wrong of a long sequence of cruelties. She refused 
 to nurse herself, declared that she had no desire to 
 live ; and it was only after long weeks of resist- 
 ance that at last she consented to see the King's 
 favourite physician, whom he had picked up on his 
 journey and installed at his Court. 
 
 Thus it was that John Frederick Struens6e came 
 to cast his baleful shadow over the hfe of the un- 
 happy Queen of Denmark, and while wrecking 
 her life to lose his own. 
 
 Struensee seems to have been an adventurer 
 from his boyhood. The son of peasant parents, 
 he had early set himself to remove his birth's 
 ignoble bar. Crafty, unprincipled and ingratiat- 
 ing, he had " risen in antechambers, exerting his 
 wits to oblige clients, nobles or rich people, by a 
 thousand and one services more or less dishonour- 
 able " ; and when, in process of time, he had been 
 recommended by one of his employers to Christian, 
 on his journey to England, he had been quick to 
 worm himself into the favour of, and gain an 
 ascendancy over, the mad King. 
 
 At last, after years of scheming and subservi- 
 
166 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 ence, Struens§e's foot was on the ladder which 
 should lead him to giddy heights. For long years 
 he had nursed the ambition of playing a big part 
 on the world's stage ; and, years before his oppor- 
 tunity came, he had confided to his brother that 
 one day he would be to a queen what Monaldeschi 
 had been to Christina of Sweden — Clover and un- 
 crowned king. And at last the time had come ! 
 He had the equipment, too, to play the role ; for, 
 although not handsome, he had a tall, commanding 
 figure, a clever tongue and brain, an insinuating 
 manner and, above all, a magnetic power which 
 few could resist. That he was absolutely heart- 
 less, as devoid of pity as of gratitude, Matilda, like 
 his other victims, was soon to prove. 
 
 At first, it is said, the Queen regarded her new 
 physician with aversion, avoiding him as far as 
 possible, and when she must see him treating him 
 with marked coldness. When, gradually but 
 surely, she found herself coming under the spell 
 of his strange magnetism, she fought stoutly 
 against his influence, and it was during this period 
 of vain struggle that she scratched her touching 
 prayer on the window of her oratory — " Lord, 
 grant that others may be great, but keep me 
 innocent." " Then," says De Wyzewa, " she 
 gave way and yielded herself entirely." 
 
 The reason for this surrender by a woman whom 
 no breath of scandal had ever touched before is 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRIDE 167 
 
 not far to seek. It is true that such love as she 
 had for her husband was killed by his cruelty, and 
 that the maudlin sentiment which succeeded only 
 inspired loathing. It is also true that Struensee 
 had much of the physical attraction calculated to 
 appeal to a scorned and ill-used woman who craved 
 affection. But the facts that she showed such a 
 strong aversion to him from the first, and struggled 
 so hard against his influence, lend convincing sup- 
 port to the theory that his ascendancy over her 
 was due neither to affection, nor to the reaction 
 of an unhappy wedded life, but to his power of 
 hypnotism. 
 
 That even after her surrender she shrank from 
 him we have abundant evidence. Once when, 
 walking along a corridor of the palace, with her 
 brother-in-law. Prince Charles of Hesse, she saw 
 Struensee coming towards her, she stopped, grew 
 deathly pale, and with a murmured excuse to the 
 Prince ran back to her apartments. When she 
 was seated opposite to him at table her pallor and 
 fits of trembling alarmed all who saw her. 
 
 But the spell was much too strong for her to 
 resist. She was soon the veriest puppet in the 
 hands of her strong-willed lover, obeying his 
 lightest word, cowering under his frown, and mute 
 under his bullying and insults. She could not 
 speak or receive a letter without his consent ; nor 
 would he allow her even to see her mother unless 
 
168 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 he were present. She was, in fact, dead to mother, 
 brothers and children ahke, to all she had ever 
 loved ; " her beautiful eyes had assumed a vacant 
 stare, a wandering expression which was painful 
 to see " ; and when she could escape from her 
 t5n:ant she spent her hours weeping in her room. 
 
 As for Struensee, he was quick to reap the fruits 
 of his ascendancy. With the King now hopelessly 
 imbecile, and the Queen the slave of his every 
 caprice, he had no difficulty in raising himself to 
 a position of power. One great office of state after 
 another was his without the asking. He was 
 absolute ruler of Denmark, with full power to do 
 as he would — ^to rob the Treasury, to give the 
 highest posts in the army and navy to his 
 friends, to make laws at home and direct affairs 
 abroad. 
 
 When the great nobles of Denmark declined 
 to come to his Court, their place was taken by 
 the Copenhagen shopkeepers and their wives, who 
 feasted at the royal tables and strutted at recep- 
 tions in their bourgeois finery, making their genu- 
 flexions to the peasant's son who was so much 
 more their king than Christian, the madman. 
 Sometimes, we are told. Christian would make a 
 diverting appearance in this court of shopkeepers, 
 attired in a dressing-gown, and would begin to 
 recite a French poem. When the hilarity of the 
 Court had subsided he would shnk back to liis 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRmE 169 
 
 apartments, where his chamberlain, Brandt, would 
 whip him soundly and put him to bed. 
 
 But Struensee had one dangerous enemy in 
 Queen Juliana, the King's stepmother, who recog- 
 nised the coward behind his brave exterior, and 
 reahsed that it would be no difficult matter to 
 dethrone so shoddy a " king." With the con- 
 nivance of a few of the braver spirits among the 
 nobles she took advantage of the distraction of a 
 masked ball at the palace to seek an interview 
 with Christian ; and, producing a forged letter 
 which revealed a plot of Matilda and Struensee 
 to kill him, wrung from the mad King an order for 
 the arrest of both the Queen and her lover. A few 
 hours later Struensee was arrested in his bed, and 
 was carried off to the citadel, strugghng and 
 weeping and crying for mercy ; while Matilda 
 was flung into a loathsome cell in Elsinore 
 prison. 
 
 Struensee 's day of splendour was now ended ; 
 his doom was sealed from the moment his cell door 
 closed on him. When he learned that the Queen 
 was also a prisoner, with characteristic coward- 
 ice he sought to save himself by denouncing her. 
 He swore that she had been his mistress against his 
 wiU, that he had struggled in vain against her 
 seductions and appeals, and had only consented 
 when she threatened to Mil herself if he resisted 
 any longer. These and other charges equally 
 
170 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 grave and false were put into writing, to which he 
 placed his signature. 
 
 Thus equipped, the conspirators betook them to 
 the Queen's cell, and demanded to know if her 
 lover's accusations were true. " K they are un- 
 true," they said, " no death is too cruel for a man 
 who has dared to assail your Majesty's good name 
 in such a fashion." It was a terrible predicament 
 for Matilda ; for if she said the charges were false 
 she condemned Struensee to a horrible death. If, 
 on the other hand, she admitted their truth, she 
 condemned herself. " If," she said at last, " I 
 confirm the truth of Struensee's charges, will my 
 confession save his life ? " And when she was 
 assured that, at least, her admission wotild reduce 
 his punishment, she exclaimed, " Very well, I will 
 sign." Her signature written, the pen dropped 
 from her hands and she fell in a dead faint on the 
 floor of her cell. 
 
 But Matilda's self-condemnation was powerless 
 to save Struensee's life ; for after a few days of 
 mo'ck penitence and piety he was publicly de- 
 graded and executed, in company with his prin- 
 cipal tool, Brandt, the chamberlain — dying with 
 the howls and execrations of the thousands of 
 spectators in his ears. For the unhappy Matilda 
 a less tragic fate was reserved. The intervention 
 of her brother, supported by a threat of war, 
 rescued her at least from the gallows — only, 
 
THE MAD KING'S BRIDE 171 
 
 however, to exchange her cell for confinement in 
 the Castle of Celle, where her equally unhappy 
 grandmother, queen of George I., had been 
 cradled a century earlier. 
 
 Here, after three years of true piety and good 
 works, the " Queen of Tears " died, of a fever 
 caught at the bedside of a cottage child, just at 
 the moment when a plot to restore her to her throne 
 was ripe for execution. 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 
 
 Cradled to the rocking of an earthquake, and 
 pursued by portents to the very foot of the altar, 
 Marie Antoinette seemed doomed from her birth 
 to the ill-luck which, as we know, dogged her 
 steps to that last day when " she drank death in a 
 long draught " on her way to the guillotine. When 
 she was little more than a child, her mother, Maria 
 Theresa of Austria, once inquired of a clairvoyant 
 what Fate had in store for her beautiful daughter. 
 The seer turned pale at the inquiry. " Madame," 
 he said, " there are crosses for all shoulders." And 
 to all the Empress's pleadings he would answer no 
 word more. 
 
 And yet no royal princess ever seemed more 
 destined to find the cup of life sweet to the taste. 
 From her earliest childhood the joy of living 
 sparkled in her eyes and bubbled at her lips. She 
 was the merriest, most bewitching little madcap 
 that ever made palace corridors ring with laughter, 
 or at the same time shocked and fascinated courtiers 
 by her pranks. She snapped her little fingers at 
 all authority, and danced her wilful and wayward 
 way through girlhood, driving her parents and 
 
 172 
 
7/^f.e tJ^r/U'/yn^y//^. 
 
 wr^^///^.. 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 173 
 
 guardians to distraction one moment, the next 
 winning forgiveness by flinging her arms round 
 their necks and the soft pleading of a kiss from her 
 pretty hps. 
 
 Even the altar had no power to check her high 
 spirits and her mutinous disregard of all con- 
 vention. One day, we are told, the fifteen-year-old 
 bride, " riding her donkey, was thrown, with the 
 swirl of petticoats that may be imagined. Ljdng 
 on her back she laughed aloud. ' Go and call 
 Madame de Noailles,' she cried, ' and ask her the 
 correct etiquette for a princess fallen from a 
 donkey ! ' " " She loved noise and laughter ; she 
 was always surrounded by a lot of yapping little 
 dogs ; she invented the silliest schoolgirl pranks — 
 passing like a gleam, like a song, careless of her train 
 and of her ladies, she does not walk — she runs ! " 
 
 When Mercy Argenteau reproved her for such 
 levity and begged her to remember that she was no 
 longer a child, but a married woman, she laughed 
 gaily in his face. " Married ? No, indeed, I am 
 not ! " And away she danced to some new escapade 
 or mischief. And thus it was always with the light- 
 hearted princess, snatching every flower of pleasure, 
 dancing, laughing, flirting, even under the scowling 
 eyes of jealousy and hatred, until at last, with eyes 
 of horror, she saw the clouds of doom massed over 
 her head, not knowing in her frivolous innocence 
 how and whence they came. 
 
174 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " Married ? Indeed I am not ! " Nor was she, 
 in any proper sense of the word, for never was a 
 more ludicrous parody of a husband than Louis 
 XVI., who led the lovely, laughter-loving Austrian 
 princess to the altar before she had seen her 
 fifteenth birthday. At supper, on his wedding 
 day, the Dauphin, as he then was, was so absorbed 
 in the delicacies of the table that he had not even 
 a glance to spare for the radiant young bride, who 
 was watching him with a look of mingled amuse- 
 ment and disgust. " Do not overload your 
 stomach to-night," the King, his grandfather, said 
 to the vivacious bridegroom. " Why ? " placidly 
 inquired the Dauphin, as he glanced up from his 
 plate. " I always sleep well after a good supper." 
 
 And indeed he took good care to sleep well on 
 this his nuptial night ; for, after leading his young 
 wife to her room, he bade her a formal good-night 
 and retired to his bed and his undisturbed slumber. 
 When the Princess de Guemenee presented herself 
 at Marie Antoinette's apartment the next morning 
 she was frankly amazed to find her alone. " The 
 Dauphin has already arisen ? " she inquired, in 
 her surprise. " Oh no ! " the bride rephed, with 
 a laugh ; "at least not here. I really believe I 
 have married the most polite man in France. 
 We parted at the door of my apartment last night. 
 He held his hat in his hand, and left me hastily 
 as if I were in his way." 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 175 
 
 When the Dauphine met her husband for the first 
 time that day, at luncheon, she asked him, with a 
 mischievous twinkle in her eyes, " Did you sleep 
 well last night ? " " Very well indeed, thank you, ' ' 
 was the answer. " Why do you ask ? " 
 
 Such was the husband to whom the loveUest and 
 gayest princess in Europe had given her hand and 
 her liberty — a. clown as insensible of her charms 
 and his duty as any clod of earth, with no interest 
 in life apart from his gluttony, his hunting and 
 the workshop over his library, with its forge, anvils 
 and tools. Gamin, who was his tutor in the art 
 of lock-making, says, " He was fond to excess of 
 lock-making, and he concealed himself from the 
 Queen and the Court to file and forge with me. 
 In order to convey his anvil and my own backwards 
 and forwards we were obliged to use a thousand 
 stratagems, the history of which would never end." 
 
 And when he was not eating, sleeping or among 
 his tools, he found his chief pleasure in the hunt, 
 with which, says Soulavie, " he was so much 
 occupied that, when I went into his private closets 
 at Versailles, I saw upon the staircase six frames, 
 in which were seen statements of all his hunts when 
 Dauphin and when King. In them was detailed 
 the number, kind and quahty of the game he had 
 killed at each hunting-party during every month, 
 every season and every year." 
 
 The sixteenth Louis was, in fact, a degenerate, a 
 
176 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 shy, morbid, retiring creature, in whom was no 
 trace of manhness, and to whom, unlike his pre- 
 decessors on the throne, beauty made no appeal. 
 Thus, from his wedding day, the fairest bride in 
 France had no power to wean him from the 
 pleasures of the table or the fascination of his forge. 
 
 Picture the early wedded days of the young 
 princess, transported from the love and gaiety of 
 her childhood's home to the deadly monotony of 
 the French Court and to a husband whose indiffer- 
 ence to her was inhuman. Here is her normal 
 day's programme as she herself gives it : "I 
 rise at ten o'clock, say my morning prayers and 
 have my breakfast, after which I go to my aunt's, 
 where I generally meet the King. At eleven I 
 have my hair dressed. At twelve the household 
 is summoned. I put on my rouge and wash my 
 hands in the presence of everybody. When this is 
 done the gentlemen leave my room, the ladies alone 
 remain and see me change my dress. At twelve, 
 mass. After dinner I go to the Dauphin's apart- 
 ments ; if he is busy I come back to my room, when 
 I read, write, or do some work. 
 
 " At three ja'clock I go to my aunt's ; at four 
 the Abb^ comes to me ; at five my music- or my 
 singing-master. From seven to nine we have a 
 game. At nine we have sjupper ; then we wait 
 for the King, who generally puts in an appearance 
 at about a quarter to eleven. As for me, I lie on 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 177 
 
 a large sofa, where I sleep until his Majesty's arrival. 
 When he does not come we retire at eleven. This 
 is how we spend the day." 
 
 As the weary months passed, the continued cold- 
 ness of the Dauphin became more and more un- 
 inteUigible to the young wife, on whom her mother 
 had strongly impressed the necessity of providing 
 heirs to the throne, a duty which she was prepared 
 to fulfil ; until in her resentment Marie Antoinette 
 at last summoned up courage to. remonstrate with 
 her husband. To her remonstrances the Dauphin 
 announced that " he ignored nothing concerning 
 marriage ; that from the beginning he had made 
 out a plan for himself from which he did not intend 
 to depart. Now that the time had arrived he 
 would live with the Dauphine at Compi^gne in the 
 character of husband." 
 
 But, although he went to Compi^gne, the journey 
 brought no change in his life. Hunting and 
 feasting filled his days ; and his diary recorded 
 alternately his attacks of indigestion and the 
 number of game he killed ; while Marie Antoinette 
 had little to report to her mother beyond such news 
 as this — " My husband had a fit of indigestion, but 
 it did not prevent him going to the hunt " ; or 
 that they still occupied separate apartments, and 
 that the Dauphin was as indifferent to her as ever. 
 
 Can one wonder that her proud spirit at last rose 
 in rebellion against such an outrage to every 
 
178 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 instinct of the woman in her, or that in her rebeUion 
 she began to seek solace and distraction elsewhere. 
 If her husband found no charm in her to lure him 
 from his gluttony and his hunting, his younger 
 brother, the clever, witty, gallant Comte de 
 Provence, was ready enough to take his place at her 
 feet, to pour flatteries into her ears and to keep her 
 amused with stories of Court scandals ; and it was 
 not long before her mother, Maria Theresa, was 
 compelled to write letters of warning against the 
 seductions of the too amorous prince. 
 
 When the Comte d'Artois followed in the steps 
 of his brother the Dauphin, and took to himself a 
 wife, matters began to assume a still more serious 
 complexion for the neglected wife, who saw the 
 early prospect of an heir to the throne of whom 
 she would not be the mother. In her anxiety, 
 M. Gaulot tells us, " she tried her utmost to thaw 
 her husband, representing to him the possibility 
 of his brother having a son. ' Do you really love 
 me ? ' he said to her. ' I do,' she replied ; ' you 
 cannot doubt it. I love you sincerely.' She 
 thought he had at last taken a manly resolution. 
 He seemed moved. But it was only for a few 
 seconds ; he soon recovered his usual indifference, 
 telUng her that on their return to Versailles he 
 would diet himself, and thought that ' all would 
 be right.' " 
 
 The dieting, however, only resulted in more 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 179 
 
 acute attacks of indigestion, to cure which he flung 
 himself more keenly than ever into manual labour. 
 " He worked with the men, helping to move beams, 
 to mix plaster, to remove stones, and would spend 
 hours at such hard work. Sometimes he returned 
 tired out, as if he had been a common workman 
 obliged to toil hard for his daily bread." 
 
 Matters were distinctly growing worse rather 
 than better. Even Maria Theresa, who had set her 
 heart on having a King of France for grandson, was 
 reduced to despair. " I cannot understand the 
 coldness of the Dauphin, a young husband of 
 twenty," she wrote, " for such a good-looking wife. 
 In spite of all the doctors' statements, my fears 
 concerning the physical constitution of the Prince 
 increase daily. My last hope is in the Emperor. 
 I trust that, during his visit to Marseilles, he 
 will find means to induce this lazy husband to 
 fulfil his duties in a sviitable way." 
 
 When, after four years of such loveless wifehood, 
 Louis XV. died and her husband succeeded to the 
 throne, Marie Antoinette forgot for a time her 
 troubles in the joy and pride of being Queen of 
 France. So happy was she that she induced her 
 husband to write a few lines by way of postscript 
 to the letter in which she expressed her deUght to 
 her mother. And this is what he wrote : "I 
 should be very happy to please you and to give 
 you a proof of my love and my gratefulness to you 
 
180 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 for having given me your daughter, with whom 
 I am extremely satisfied." To which the dis- 
 appointed young Queen added, " You see, my 
 dear mamma, by the end of the compHment, that 
 although he is very affectionate to me, he does not 
 spoil me with too much praise ! " 
 
 With his accession to the crown Louis XVL 
 seems at last to have awakened to a more proper 
 sense of his duty as husband. At least he was no 
 longer content, as during the past four years, to 
 say " Good-night " to his Queen at the door of her 
 apartment. But, Gaulot says, " he slept only a 
 little nearer his consort — voila tout \" So little 
 changed were their relations that when one of the 
 Queen's ladies once begged her not to ride too 
 much she answered impatiently, " For goodness 
 sake leave me alone ! You need have no fear that 
 I endanger the heir to the throne." 
 
 How remote such a possibility still was is proved 
 by a letter she wrote to the Comte de Rosenberg, 
 after she had been Queen for nearly a year, in which 
 she says : " The King loves nothing beyond hunting 
 and mechanics. You will agree with me that I 
 should look out for a place in a forge. I could not 
 act the part of Vulcan, and that of Venus might 
 displease him much more than would my tastes, 
 of which he does not approve." 
 
 Later in the same year, Marie Antoinette wrote 
 to her mother : " The King seems to be kinder and 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 181 
 
 to trust me more, and I have nothing to be jealous 
 of on that point. But with regard to the im- 
 portant subject — which troubles my dear mamma's 
 fondness, I am very sorry I have nothing new to 
 say ; it is not / that am lazy." It should in fair- 
 ness be said for Louis that however deplorably he 
 failed during these long years to play the role of 
 husband, he treated his wife with due courtesy and 
 kindness. As she herself admits, " although he is 
 awkward, he is attentive and as good to me as it is 
 possible to be." 
 
 Meanwhile the Dauphine did not allow her 
 husband's indifference to her charms to interfere 
 with the pursuit of pleasure which was to prove 
 so fatal to her. She flung herself with a reckless 
 zest into every indulgence and dissipation. She 
 developed a passion for gambling which quickly 
 degenerated into a vice. On one memorable 
 occasion she played faro during the whole of the 
 night of 30th October (1776) until five o'clock in 
 the morning. After a few hours' rest, she resumed 
 gambling until three o'clock in the morning of All 
 Saints' Day. "The worst of it is," says Mercy, 
 " that All Saints' Day, being a great feast, the 
 people were scandalised." 
 
 " The games," he says later, " are sometimes 
 stormy and shameful. They have forced the 
 bankers to reprove violently some of the lady 
 players for their want of honesty. The Queen's 
 
182 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 losses at card-playing increase ; her purse is quite 
 empty, so that she cannot pay what she owes, much 
 less give to charities." In January 1777 Mercy 
 helped her to add up the total of her gambling debts. 
 It amounted to four hundred and eighty-nine 
 thousand, two hundred and seventy-two pounds. 
 And gambling was but one of Marie Antoinette's 
 many indiscretions and follies. In the reaction 
 against the tedium and etiquette of Court life, she 
 would fl-ing aside her royal dignity and, with her 
 ladies, would mingle^ " without attendants and 
 dressed up," with the crowds that flocked to the 
 Versailles Gardens to hear the bands play, revelling 
 in her incognito and the adventures it brought. 
 At the horse races, too, her conduct gave occasion 
 for equal scandal. " I went to the course in full 
 dress," says Mercy. " On reaching the royal tent 
 I found there a large table spread with an ample 
 collation, which was, so to speak, fought for by 
 a crowd of young men unfittingly dressed, who 
 made wild confusion and all kinds of unintelligible 
 noises. In the midst of this mob were the Queen, 
 Madame d'Artois, Madame Ehzabeth and M. le 
 Comte d'Artois, the last of whom kept running 
 about, betting and complaining whenever he lost, 
 pitiably excited if he won, and rushing among the 
 people outside to encourage his jockeys. He 
 actually presented to the Queen a jockey who had 
 won a race." 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 183 
 
 It is not perhaps surprising that rumours were 
 set afloat that the Queen sought adventures in these 
 mixed gatherings and even gave rendezvous to 
 men of low station. Such suspicions were in all 
 probability quite groundless, but certainly some 
 support was lent to them by the Queen's flagrant 
 flirtations with her successive lovers, from that 
 handsome, clever-tongued Lothario, Baron de 
 Besenval, who is said to have acquired a fatal 
 ascendancy over her, to the Due de Coigny and 
 Count Fersen, who was her loyal cavalier to his last 
 tragic hour. To such follies as these she added an 
 almost insane extravagance, which found a hundred 
 vents, from costly gowns and jewels to the fortunes 
 prodigally lavished on her favourites, the Princesse 
 de Lamballe and the Comtesse de Polignac. 
 
 Thus the years passed for Marie Antoinette in 
 folly and frivolity, in feverish efforts to escape from 
 the lovelessness of her wedded life. The Comtesse 
 d'Artois had now given birth to the son whose 
 advent the Queen dreaded, and still the clownish 
 Louis remained as little her husband as on her 
 wedding night. But at last a change was to come 
 over the scene with the arrival in Paris of the 
 Emperor Joseph II., Marie Antoinette's brother, 
 whose mission it was to put an end, if possible, to 
 such a deplorable and unnatural state of affairs, 
 and with such diplomacy and delicacy did Joseph 
 discharge his mission that Louis promised to amend 
 
184 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 his ways, and even asked his brother-in-law for 
 special advice with this object. 
 
 "This man," the Emperor wrote to his mother, 
 " is rather weak, but not a silly fool. He has a 
 good understanding, but is lazy both morally and 
 physically. He talks sensibly, but has no taste 
 for learning, no desire to know. His senses are 
 still undeveloped." 
 
 So effective was the " special advice " Joseph 
 was able to give to his lethargic brother-in-law 
 that, shortly after his departure, Marie Antoinette 
 was able to write, "It is said that the Comtesse 
 d'Artois is again to become a mother. It is un- 
 pleasant enough for me after seven years of married 
 life ; still, I am not without hopes, as my brother 
 will be able to tell my dear mamma how matters 
 stand. The King and he talked on the subject 
 with unrestrained confidence." 
 
 With the King's tardy awakening to his marital 
 responsibilities, his queen appears to have lost 
 much of her former anxiety to play the part of 
 wife. It was, we learn, with something like actual 
 loathing that she suffered his embraces ; and she 
 would spend long nights at the gaming-table in 
 order to escape them. When Mercy ventured to 
 remind her of her duty she would excuse herself 
 by sa5ang, " The King does not really care for my 
 company." In spite, however, of this reluctance 
 Mercy is able, in January 1778, to assure Maria 
 
A MARRIAGE THAT FAILED 185 
 
 Theresa that her " daughter continues to behave 
 very properly to the King, who for his ovra part 
 persists in leading in its truest and most exact 
 meaning the Ufe of a married man." 
 
 Before the year came to an end the Austrian 
 Empress was made happy by the news of the birth 
 of a granddaughter, who was to bear her name. 
 " God be thanked ! " she wrote in her joy. " May 
 my dear Antoinette be strengthened in her briUiant 
 situation, and give many heirs to France." But 
 stiU the too-long awaited heir to the throne had 
 not made his appearance ; and Maria Theresa's 
 letters to her daughter are full of anxious advice 
 and hopes that she may not have long to wait for 
 his arrival. 
 
 " My granddaughter must have a companion," 
 she wrote, in April 1779, " and not wait long for him 
 either." When the Queen received this letter, with 
 its good advice " not to neglect anything you can 
 do to bring this about," she was in Httle mood to 
 read it patiently. She was suffering from an attack 
 of measles and had for nurses four noblemen, who 
 had her in their charge, only retiring at eleven 
 o'clock each night under strong pressure. " It 
 is easy to reahse the sensation caused by this 
 adventure, and the comments which were passed 
 on it. Jokers asked who were the four ladies who 
 would nurse the King in case of his being ill." 
 
 Three more children Marie Antoinette bore to 
 
186 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 her husband : the long-expected Dauphin (" Chou 
 d' Amour "), who only lived to hear the first 
 rumblings of the Revolution ; a daughter who 
 died in infancy ; and the Due de Normandie, who 
 became Dauphin on his brother's death in 1789, 
 and who shared his ill-fated mother's captivity 
 in the Temple, and followed her behind the veil 
 less than two years after her still proud head fell 
 under the axe of the guillotine. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 
 
 Of all the women who have worn crowns, Catherine 
 II. of Russia was at once the most splendid and 
 the most inscrutable. She was a crowned enigma, 
 as impossible to understand when, to quote the 
 extravagant language of Voltaire, she was the 
 " admiration of the universe " as to-day, when she 
 has been dust for a century. Gifted beyond any 
 other woman of her age, with a brain as strong 
 and shrewd and statesmanlike as that of the great 
 Frederick himself, she was to her last day the 
 frailest of her sex, with a passion for men which 
 shocked Europe in an age of licence. Empress 
 and Delilah, queen and courtesan — such were the 
 widely diverse roles which filled the life of the 
 " Semiramis of the North " to its close. 
 
 If we are to accept Poniatowski's description of 
 her charms it is Uttle wonder that she drew even the 
 most cold-blooded of men to her feet. " With her 
 black hair, she had a dazzling whiteness of skin, 
 a vivid colour, large blue eyes, prominent and 
 eloquent, black and long eyebrows, a Greek nose, 
 a mouth that seemed made for kissing, a slight 
 figure, a noble carriage, and a laugh as merry as the 
 187 
 
188 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 humour through which she could with ease pass 
 from the most playful and childish amusements to 
 the most fatiguing mathematical calculations," 
 
 Even the men who were drawn to her by her 
 gifts of mind were unable to resist the magnetism 
 of her sensual appeal, and were quick to swell the 
 retinue of her lovers. Voltaire's blood was fired 
 to write to her such effusions as this : " Let me, 
 goddess of my soul, celebrate as my weakness can, 
 the divine qualities of your Majesty, and lay on the 
 altar of my heart the offerings of my fervour and 
 love before your divine charms. . . ." And 
 Diderot, in the extravagance of his passion, writes : 
 " Great princess, I kneel at your feet. I reach 
 out my arms to you ; I would speak to you, but my 
 soul is overcome, my head turns, my thoughts 
 become confused, I weep hke a child." 
 
 But while Catherine basked in the homage of 
 such intellectual love, she yearned for a more virile, 
 hot-blooded passion ; and she never lacked it. 
 Lover after lover succeeded each other in her arms, 
 with at times bewildering quickness, each different 
 from his fellows, but all aUke in their strong 
 physical fascination for the insatiable Empress. 
 Now it is Poniatowski, handsome and graceless, 
 courtier to his finger-tips, who reigns as favourite, 
 until she wearies of him and packs him off to Poland 
 to wear a crown. Now it is Patiomkin, the swarthy 
 gigantic cavalry sergeant, " one-eyed, squinting. 
 

 
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THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 189 
 
 and knock-kneed," a man " dreadful and repulsive 
 in appearance," who takes her fancy and rules her 
 and her empire, through years of rich harvesting. 
 And now it is Gregory Orlof, the tallest and hand- 
 somest man in all Russia, whose good looks and 
 sweUing muscles appeal to her passion for a 
 " man," and who reigns for a spell as lover and 
 tyrant, until he in turn is dismissed, loaded with 
 honours and riches. 
 
 Thus for forty years the favourites of the hour 
 succeed each other as each takes her volatile fancy 
 — Clovers of all types and grades ; but all of them 
 possessed of that sex magnetism which to the day 
 of her death she never seemed able, or indeed 
 disposed, to resist. But the king of them all was 
 undoubtedly Patiomkin, the ill-favoured giant, 
 glutton and dnmkard and, in his latter years, 
 madman, whom she loved to the last, and whose 
 death plunged her into a grief that nearly ended 
 her own life. " On learning the news," we are told, 
 " she lost consciousness ; the blood ran to her head 
 and she was obliged to be bled." To Grimm she 
 wrote in her sorrow : " My pupil, my friend, almost 
 my idol. Prince Patiomkin, of the Taurida, is dead 
 ... oh, heavens ! it is now that I need to be 
 Madame la Ressource." 
 
 But grief for a lost lover, even Patiomkin, was 
 never long in finding consolation. He himself 
 had provided a sequence of favourites to take his 
 
190 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 place when his mistress craved variety ; and after 
 his death there was no lack of eligible candidates to 
 step into his shoes. But Catherine was now grow- 
 ing old, and at last, after forty years of unbridled 
 indulgence, the flames of passion were dying down 
 to the embers. One after another her favourites 
 failed to hold her fickle and sated fancy, and 
 passed quickly into obscurity. Mamonof , the last 
 of Patiomkin's proteges, had been dismissed 
 summarily and in disgrace ; and his successor 
 seemed far to seek. 
 
 Then it was that we first hear of Plato Zubof , who 
 was destined to be the last of the long list of men 
 who reigned as Catherine's favourites, and probably 
 the most incomprehensible of them all. A mere 
 boy of twenty-two, young enough to call the 
 Empress grandmother, he seemed to be the last 
 of all the men at the Court to capture her fancy. 
 He is described as " dark, sUm, short, like a pretty 
 Frenchman after the style of the ChevaUer de 
 Puysegur." And it was this pretty-faced young 
 dandy, this pocket Adonis, with neither brains nor 
 manliness to commend him to the favour of such 
 a fastidious mistress, who was now to occupy the 
 place of such splendid specimens of manhood as 
 Gregory and Alexis Orlof , and a man of such genius 
 for intrigue as Patiomkin. Well might Catherine's 
 courtiers scoff at his pretensions, and laugh in their 
 sleeves at such senile folly on the part of the 
 
THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 191 
 
 Empress, who certainly had as good an eye for a 
 " man " as any woman in Europe. " He is a child, 
 with nice manners, but little wit," Bezborodko 
 wrote to a friend. " I do not think he will hold his 
 place long. However, that does not interest me." 
 
 But the Court might rock with laughter and 
 be full of amused and contemptuous whisperings. 
 Catherine was more than content with her boy- 
 lover, who somehow had the power to fan her 
 dying passion into flame again. " I have come 
 back to life," she wrote jubilantly, " Uke a fly that 
 has been frozen by the cold. . . . Now I am gay 
 and well again." 
 
 Her letters were fuU of her new plaything — ^his 
 pretty manners, his playful moods, his charming 
 qualities, just as a proud mother might write of 
 her youngest child. Indeed she speaks of her new 
 lover as the " child," when she does not playfuUy 
 refer to him as " my little Blackie " ; and she tells 
 her correspondents how he " cries when he is not 
 allowed to enter my room." 
 
 Plato Zubof, unhke some of Catherine's more 
 robust favourites, was at least a gentleman by 
 birth. The son of Alexander Zubof, governor of a 
 province, he was one of four brothers, the eldest 
 of whom was already a major-general, while Plato 
 himself was a subaltern in the Regiment of Guards 
 when the Empress was first attracted by his youthful 
 beauty. But young as he was, and of such " child- 
 
192 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 like simplicity," he quickly showed that a scheming, 
 ambitious brain was at work behind his baby face. 
 Patiomkin was still alive ; and, realising that he 
 still held first place in the Empress's affection, he 
 sought to undermine his influence by sending his 
 brother to the army to play the spy, and to " send 
 in reports in which the faults and negligences of the 
 commander-in-chief were brought out in strong 
 relief." 
 
 And while he was thus seeking to compass his 
 great rival's downfall, he set to work to squeeze as 
 large a fortune as possible out of the infatuated 
 Catherine. All who sought office or favours from 
 the Empress were glad to make him their inter- 
 mediary, and his zeal was in proportion to the bribes 
 they were prepared to put into his ever-ready hand. 
 
 If he coveted lands, as he always did, the Empress 
 was ever ready, in response to his wheedling, to 
 lavish them on him ; and when coaxing failed he 
 had abundant other artifices to gain his end. Thus, 
 when, in 1791, his mistress was hesitating about 
 buying for him a considerable domain which was 
 in the market, he got scent of the project (Walis- 
 zewski tells us), and the following dialogue took 
 place at a state dinner: — "How much does this 
 domain cost ? " " Your Majesty will pardon me, 
 it is already sold." " How long since ? " " This 
 very morning." " To whom ? " " There is the 
 purchaser." And the imperturbable spendthrift 
 
THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 193 
 
 pointed to a young aide-de-camp, a poor young 
 officer who was standing behind his chair. The 
 Empress frowned ; but the trick had succeeded. 
 On that very day a formal contract was drawn up, 
 and the lucky accomplice of this coup de theatre 
 found himself in possession of twelve thousand 
 serfs. 
 
 When, after three years of such harvesting, death 
 removed Patiomkin from his path, his progress 
 to wealth was meteoric. One vast estate after 
 another fell into his hands, and the highest honours 
 were his without the asking. Eagles red and black 
 adorned his breast ; he was Count and Prince of 
 the Holy Empire ; and by virtue of his many 
 exalted offices he was Emperor in all but name. 
 When, in 1794, he was Governor-General of New 
 Russia, Count Rastoptshin wrote, " Count Zubof 
 is everything here. There is no limit to his power. 
 It is greater than that which was wielded by Prince 
 Patiomkin. He is as negUgent and incapable as 
 ever, though the Empress repeats to one and all 
 that he is the greatest genius Russia has ever seen." 
 In five years he had already reached a dizzier 
 height of power than Patiomkin had attained in 
 a score of years ! 
 
 And never was man more incompetent or swollen- 
 headed than this spoilt darling of an old woman. 
 When he was Grand Master of Artillery, it is said, 
 he did not know the difference between a field-piece 
 
194 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 and a piece of ordnance. "He is not fit to be 
 a subaltern of guards," one of his generals said 
 contemptuously. When he was arbiter of Russia's 
 foreign policy he " acted like a thrfee-year-old child 
 who had been set down to play chess." And, in 
 regard to home affairs, the only monuments of his 
 administration were a demoralised army, an empty 
 treasury and crowded prisons. 
 
 But to all her favourite's ludicrous failures 
 Catherine was blind. In her eyes he was a man of 
 consummate genius, the greatest man in her empire, 
 greater than Patiomkin. And she showed her 
 admiration of his genius by lavishing favours 
 not only on him but on all his family. When 
 his brother. Valerian, was wounded in Poland, she 
 made a general of him, sent him a casket containing 
 ten thousand ducats to pay his expenses back to 
 St Petersburg, and provided him with " a Court 
 surgeon, an English carriage, and a hundred horses 
 at every posting station," that the stricken hero 
 (who had exhibited no trace of valour) might 
 travel with every comfort and expedition. 
 
 Where the Empress led there was no lack of 
 sycophants to follow. Even in the Senate the 
 empty-headed coxcomb was lauded as the most 
 beneficent genius of his age ; and orators and 
 authors vied with each other in hailing a Plato 
 wiser than his great namesake of Athens. " Every 
 day " (to quote Langeron), " from the hour of eight. 
 
THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 195 
 
 his ante-room was thronged with courtiers and 
 generals, ministers and strangers, people with 
 requests to make, people in want of posts and 
 advancement. For the most part they had to wait 
 from four to five hours without being admitted ; 
 and next day they were back again. At last the 
 day of favour arrived ; the folding-doors were 
 thrown open, the crowd rushed in, and the favourite 
 was found seated before a mirror having his hair 
 done, generally with one foot on a chair, or a comer 
 of the toilet-table. The courtiers ranged them- 
 selves before him, two or three deep, in the midst 
 of a cloud of powder ; after bowing low they 
 remained silent and motionless. The favourite 
 appeared not to see anyone. 
 
 " He amused himself with unsealing papers, and 
 having them read to him ; and when he addressed 
 anyone, the person spoken to made four or five 
 bows before reaching the toilet-table. The word 
 said, he returned to his place on tiptoe. I am 
 positive there were a great number of people who 
 waited upon him for three years in succession 
 without ever having spoken to him." 
 
 And while the awed, obsequious crowd awaited 
 the coxcomb's condescension, his pet -monkey would 
 leap from head to head, clawing at fore-locks and 
 scratching faces, without a victim daring to raise 
 voice or hand in protest against such painful 
 famiharities, while Zubof rolled with laughter at 
 
196 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 his favourite's antics. But Zubof, haughty and 
 insolent as he was, at least received his suppliants 
 in more becoming guise than Patiomkin, who 
 appeared at his audiences, " unwashed and un- 
 combed, wearing a dressing-gown under which 
 were neither trousers nor drawers." 
 
 Thus for seven years, until Catherine's death, this 
 last and most contemptible of her favourites was 
 lapped in luxury, waxed fat on her foolish bounty, 
 and was feted and fawned on by the greatest of 
 her subjects. 
 
 When at last Catherine's long orgy of passion 
 and power closed, with her death in November, 
 1796, Zubof 's, reign of splendour came to a sudden 
 eclipse, and he ignominiously hid his head under his 
 sister's roof until he could discover what the new 
 sovereign's attitude would be towards his mother's 
 paramour. He had little cause to expect Paul to 
 look at him with a lenient eye ; for even Catherine's 
 son had not escaped the insolence with which the 
 favourite had treated even the highest at the 
 Russian Court. 
 
 Picture then his amazement and delight when 
 a Court messenger appeared with the information 
 that the Emperor had ordered a palatial house in 
 St Petersburg to be prepared for the ex-favourite, 
 and, further, proposed to honour him by drinking 
 tea with him there on the morrow. When, the 
 following day, Paul with his Empress presented 
 
THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 197 
 
 themselves at the Morskaia Palace, he was in the 
 most gracious and affable mood, greeting Zubof 
 with the cordiaUty of a friend and insisting on 
 drinking his health in champagne. As further 
 proof of his Imperial favour, he asked the Empress 
 to preside at the tea-table and play the hostess on 
 such a happy occasion. 
 
 But Zubof's dehght was of short duration. 
 Before he had ceased to congratulate himself on 
 his good fortune the skilfvilly masked blow feU. 
 He was stripped of all his offices and vast estates 
 and ordered to leave St Petersburg. His sun had 
 set when it still appeared to be at its zenith ; and 
 the Emperor was avenged. For a time the dis- 
 graced favourite wandered on the Continent, seek- 
 ing to restore his lost fortune by marriage with 
 an heiress. He dalHed with the Comtesse de la 
 Roche-Aymon, an exile like himself, until he 
 chanced to meet the two daughters of the Duke of 
 Courland, the most richly dowered princesses in 
 Europe, to one of whom he paid assiduous court. 
 But the Duke, who had Zubof to thank for the loss 
 of his sovereignty, refused point-blank to accept 
 him for son-in-law. 
 
 Thus checkmated the knight -errant was plan- 
 ning an elopement, when he was suddenly recalled 
 to Russia to take part in an enterprise after his 
 heart ; and a few weeks later he was in the front 
 rank of the unhappy Paul's assassins. So far. 
 
198 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 however, from re-establishing his fortunes, as he 
 had confidently hoped, by this dastardly deed, 
 he found himself in still further disfavour at the 
 Russian Court. The new Emperor, Alexander I., 
 treated him with such marked hostihty that once 
 more he was compelled to start on his travels. 
 
 At Toeplitz he had an adventure which covered 
 him with ignominy and showed to the world what 
 a poltroon this " hero " of Catherine really was. 
 One day he chanced to meet at Toeplitz the last 
 man on earth he would willingly have faced, the 
 Chevalier de Saxe, a man whom he had vainly 
 tried to assassinate in Russia some years earlier. 
 De Saxe promptly challenged his would-be assassin 
 to a duel, a challenge which Zubof was obliged to 
 accept. When, however, the hour of meeting ar- 
 rived he refused point-blank to face his adversary, 
 on the plea that he had had no experience with 
 pistols, the weapons chosen by the seconds ; and 
 when swords were produced as a substitute he 
 professed to be too ill to fight, and walked 
 ignominiously away to find a friend obliging 
 enough to take his place ! 
 
 Realising at last that his day was over, he retired 
 to his castle of Shavle, which alone Paul had been 
 induced to restore to him of all his possessions, and 
 there he spent the last sordid years of his life, 
 gloating over the gold he had rescued from the 
 wreckage of his fortune, and grinding down his 
 
THE LAST OF THE FAVOURITES 199 
 
 serfs pitilessly. To such a deplorable condition 
 were his slaves reduced, and such were the poverty 
 and destitution of his estate, that the Emperor 
 Alexander gave orders to the governor of the pro- 
 vince to " put down the excesses from which the 
 unhappy folk suffered." 
 
 Here, remote from the world in which he had 
 cut so splendid a figure, shunned and hated by all, 
 Zubof passed a few miserable years haunted by 
 the spectre of death, in such terror of the approach- 
 ing end that at the very mention of the word 
 " death " he would shut himself in his room for 
 days, refusing to see or speak to anyone. At fifty 
 he was a decrepit old man, a pathetic wreck of the 
 dandy who had the magic to fan into flame for the 
 last time the passion of an empress. 
 
 One more romance, however, awaited him, before 
 the end came. When walking one day in the streets 
 of Wilna his eyes fell on the beautiful daughter of 
 a small landowner in the district. To see her was, 
 to this shattered roue, to long to possess her. 
 Nothing should stand in the way of this last 
 indulgence ; and, the father's consent secured by 
 an enormous bribe, Tekla Walentj^nowicz became 
 Princess Zubof. A year later death snatched the 
 ex-favourite from his money-bags, and his princess 
 was left a widow, with twenty million roubles, the 
 hoarded treasure of his cellars, to compensate her 
 for twelve months of profound unhappiness. 
 
CHAPTER XV 
 
 A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 
 
 It was with a sigh of relief that France learned 
 that Louis, the " God-given," was dead. There 
 was no attempt to simulate a grief which none, 
 save perhaps a few of his courtiers, felt ; for 
 he had long outlived the glamour of the days 
 when, not only in his own land, but through- 
 out Europe, he was hailed " Sun-King," the 
 most splendid of all the great ones who wore 
 crowns. 
 
 A new generation had sprung up, to whom this 
 period of splendour and power was only a tradition. 
 They had no reason to love, even to respect, the 
 man who was clinging to his sceptre after more than 
 seventy years of sovereignty. He had long passed 
 into the obscurity of Madame de Maintenon's 
 apartments, where he spent his days with his 
 unromantic wife, a woman older than himself, he 
 in one arm-chair, she in another. His Court, from 
 being the most brilliant in Europe, had become 
 the duUest^ — ^the laughing-stock of Europe. His 
 country, plunged into disastrous wars, humihated 
 by one crushing defeat after another, was groaning 
 under an intolerable burden of debt ; and the 
 
 200 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 201 
 
 populace, made desperate by hunger and poverty, 
 was full of a dangerous unrest. 
 
 Now that the King, who was the cause of these 
 accumulated calamities, was dead, France was 
 frankly relieved, even glad. He had worn his 
 crown much too long for his country's good. With 
 a boy-king on the throne, and the gay and gallant 
 Due d'Orleans as Regent, a new and brighter era 
 would dawn ; and the expectation was more than 
 realised. After a generation of slumber the Court 
 awoke, as by the touch of a magic wand, to a new 
 life more brilliant than any it had known even in 
 the Sun-King's prime. To long faces and hushed 
 voices succeeded the laughter and coquetries of 
 fair women, the fine feathers of love-making 
 gallants, the twinkle of dancing feet in galliard 
 and volta, banquets and midnight suppers — ^the 
 whole kaleidoscope of a court bent on pleasure. 
 And the magician who had wrought this revolution 
 was, of course, the Regent, the Due d'Orleans, that 
 strange jumble of statesmanship and sensuality, 
 gallant soldier and gay Lothario, who knew more 
 of the arts of love and pleasure than any other 
 man in Europe. He it was who set the merry tune 
 to which all France was soon dancing. Not even 
 Rome in her day of decadence could match the 
 midnight revels of which he was the arch-spirit, 
 and of which we have read in an earlier sketch ; 
 and no Court gallant could point to such a list of 
 
202 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 conquests, in which a duchess was succeeded by a, 
 ballet dancer, and a princess by a gnsette. Such 
 a mania for pleasure would have been remarkable 
 even in a young man ; but the Due d'Orleans had 
 long passed the age when youth could have been 
 pleaded in extenuation of his excesses. 
 
 " My son," his mother, the Princess Palatine, 
 wrote, " is no longer a boy of twenty ; he is forty- 
 two, and Paris can find no excuse for his pursuit 
 of women, like an impetuous youth, with all the 
 burden of state on his shoulders. It was very 
 different for the late King, who ruled a prosperous 
 kingdom and could well afford to enjoy himself ; 
 but my son must work night and day to repair 
 the ruin wrought by Louis and his ministers. It 
 cannot be denied that Philippe has a great weak- 
 ness for women. His principal favourite now is a 
 Madame Parab^re. She is a daughter of Madame 
 de la Vieuville, who was lady of the bedchamber 
 to the Duchesse de Berry. And it was there that 
 my son first met her. Madame de Parabere is now 
 a widow. She has a fine figure, and is tall and well- 
 made ; her skin is dark and she does not paint ; she 
 has a pretty mouth and beautiful eyes ; she is 
 rather stupid, but is a fine bit of flesh." 
 
 Such is the picture drawn by " Madame " of the 
 latest of the long list of women, frail as fair, who 
 had succumbed to her son's fascinations ; for 
 although the Regent was no Adonis he had in a 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 208 
 
 marked degree what is more dangerous in the lists 
 of love, a magnetism which few women could resist. 
 From the Duchesse de Fedari to the pretty Uttle 
 actress " La Souris," and from the Comtesse de 
 Sabran to Madame d'Aveme, the most cultured of 
 her sex in France, there was probably not one of aU 
 his mistresses who did not love Philippe the man, 
 rather than Phihppe the Regent. 
 
 That Madame de Parab^re was beautiful, even 
 her lover's mother is obliged, however grudgingly, 
 to admit ; and to her physical charms, so baldly 
 catalogued, of a fine figure, pretty mouth and 
 beautiful eyes — a. catalogue which does no justice 
 to one of the loveliest and most gracefid women 
 of her day — ^were added a sparkling wit, a nature 
 of singular sweetness, and an irresistible gaiety of 
 spirit. " Madame de Parabere," a chronicler of 
 the time says, "was incomparably the most 
 seductive woman I have known, irresistible from 
 her wonderful eyes, which could change in an 
 instant from a melting tenderness to a flash of 
 flame, to the silvery laughter that was always 
 bubbling from her pretty lips." 
 
 Bom in 1693, Madame de Parabere had through 
 her father a long hne of noble Breton ancestors, one 
 of whom had come to Paris in the retinue of Queen 
 Anne, two centuries before her birth ; and for 
 mother a niece of the Due d'Argenson. It was, 
 however, to her mother that she owed ahke the 
 
204 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 heritage of beauty and the love of gallantry which 
 justified the name " Magdalene " given to her at 
 the baptismal font. As a child, Mademoiselle de 
 Vieuville gave promise of a rare loveliness ; and 
 before she had emerged from short frocks she had 
 her court of lovers, each in turn driven to distrac- 
 tion by her coquetries. Even in these early years, 
 we are told, she exhibited the passion for jewels 
 and for gorgeous attire which she carried almost 
 to the grave. 
 
 At eighteen Mademoiselle made her d^but at 
 Court, to dazzle all eyes by her radiant young 
 beauty, and to set the heart of every gallant beating 
 by the flash of her eyes, the superb grace of every 
 movement, or the seduction of her smile. Madame 
 de Maintenon took the girl to her heart ; even Louis 
 relaxed into approving smiles under the magic of 
 her winsomeness ; and it was not long before a 
 husband was found for the debutante in Jean C&ar 
 de Beaudeant, Comte de Parabere. 
 
 So far, in spite of her coquetries and frivolities, no 
 breath of scandal had sought to soil her fair fame. 
 But before she had worn her wedding ring many 
 months her flirtations gave cause for many a 
 mysterious whispering and covertly pointed finger. 
 That she had little love for the husband who had 
 given her his name is more than probable ; at any 
 rate, such love as she had proved no barrier to an 
 outrageous flirtation with my Lord BoUngbroke, 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 205 
 
 the handsome rake who was England's ambassador 
 in Paris, and who seems to have been at least as 
 skilled in gallantry as in diplomacy. 
 
 " Love," the newly made bride wrote at the time, 
 " is the only thing in life worth hving for ; and it 
 shall not be my fault if I do not have my fill of it." 
 And certainly, if she failed, the fault was not hers ; 
 for no sooner was Bohngbroke's back turned than 
 his place was taken by Marshal de Montluzon, an 
 officer of the Guards, the greatest roue in Louis' 
 army. And when Montluzon in turn was called 
 from her arms, they were quick to find a successor 
 still more welcome — ^none other than the Regent 
 himself. 
 
 It seems probable that the Due d'Orleans had 
 known Madame for some time before he offered 
 his love. He may even have known her as a child, 
 for in those days he had, it is said, been more than 
 kind to Madame de Vieuville, her mother, in whose 
 giddy steps her daughter was now so lightheartedly 
 following. But the Regent was never a man to 
 force his affection on any woman, however fair, 
 as his chivalrous treatment of Aisse, the beautiful 
 Circassian, proves. He could afford to wait until 
 his advances were acceptable, and he seldom had 
 to wait long ; for few could long resist the most 
 fascinating man in France. 
 
 It is thus fairly clear that Madame de Parabere 
 was by no means an unwilling victim. She 
 
206 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 thirsted for love, and love she must have at any 
 cost. " Eternity is only in heaven," she once said ; 
 " the earth is turning and we must turn with it." 
 Her mother had now turned to a tardy piety ; but 
 she had had her day, and her daughter meant to 
 have hers. And thus it was that, when her second 
 lover, Montluzon, was no longer available, she 
 transferred her facile affections to a still more 
 desirable successor. 
 
 Madame 's liaisons were now the common know- 
 ledge of the Court, and it was thus unlikely that her 
 husband should be ignorant of them. It is true 
 that in those days fidelity to the marriage vows 
 was not considered " good tone " ; it was all very 
 well for the bourgeoisie, but among the nobility it 
 was little less than an indecency. M. de Parab^re, 
 however, was bourgeois in his view of the marriage 
 tie, and his jealousy was a constant thorn in 
 Madame's bed of roses. Fortunately for her, he 
 was a man whom it was no difficult matter to 
 hoodwink, as the following amusing story shows : — 
 
 One day, in the first flush of his devotion, the 
 Regent presented Madame de Parab6re with a 
 diamond, said to be worth two thousand golden 
 louis. Madame was deUghted with such a regal 
 gift ; but — ^the horrible thought assailed her — ^how 
 could she account to her husband for the possession 
 of so valuable a piece of jewellery ? Her quick 
 wits, however, were not long in solving the problem; 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 207 
 
 and this is how she did it. " My dear," she said 
 to the Comte, with an air of innocence calculated 
 to disarm the most morbid suspicion, " a friend of 
 mine who is in want of ready money has offered 
 me this beautiful ring for a ridiculous sum — a 
 thousand louis only ! Don't you think it would 
 be a pity to miss such an excellent opportunity ? 
 I should love to have it," she added, in a tone of 
 irresistible coaxing. The unsuspecting husband 
 fell promptly into the trap, produced the thousand 
 louis and gallantly declared that it was a pleasure 
 to purchase happiness so cheaply for such a charm- 
 ing wife. Madame thanked him effusively for his 
 generosity, pocketed the money ; and proudly 
 displayed the ring to her friends as the gift of her 
 indulgent husband ! 
 
 But the possession of a wife at once so charming 
 and so false brought so little happiness to the Comte 
 that, becoming more and more a prey to jealousy, 
 only too weU founded, he plunged into dissipation, 
 and, it is said, drank himself to death — ^an event 
 which his widow promptly celebrated by a supper- 
 party, at which she was the ringleader of gaiety. 
 Her husband thus conveniently removed from her 
 path, the Comtesse was free to indulge her appetite 
 for adventure without restraint, a freedom of which 
 she took fulji advantage. " Never," we are told, 
 " was she without a lover ; the moment she wearied 
 of one she installed another in his place, and to each 
 
208 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 in turn she seemed as devoted as if he had never 
 had a rival. She saw everything through his eyes ; 
 shared his views, friends and tastes as if he had not 
 had a predecessor." 
 
 But although her lovers thus followed each other 
 in unbroken sequence she retained her affection for 
 the Regent, in spite of long periods of neglect and 
 the claims of newer rivals ; and to Madame de 
 Parabere the Due was probably more loyal than to 
 any of his long list of mistresses. The reason 
 perhaps is not far to seek ; for, although no more 
 beautiful than some of her rivals, she was the least 
 grasping. She loved him for himself, and wanted 
 neither gold nor favours from him. She never 
 trespassed on the hours which he rigidly devoted 
 every day to affairs of state, and in these affairs 
 she never interfered. 
 
 Never was man more addicted to pleasure than 
 the Due d'Orleans ; but he was at least equally 
 devoted to the duties of his high position as ruler 
 of France ; and neither devotion was allowed to 
 interfere with the other. At the Tuileries his 
 minions and his mistresses found no welcome ; 
 at the Palais Royal, where from six o'clock every 
 evening they shared his revels, no word of state 
 matters was permitted under pain of his displeasure. 
 And it was to her observance of this Une of demarca- 
 tion between pleasure and duty that Madame de 
 Parabere owed her long tenure of the Regent's 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 209 
 
 affection and her influence over him. How great 
 this influence was is illustrated by the following 
 story. 
 
 When the rascally Dubois, who had been the 
 Due's tutor, and who had, with such diabolical 
 success, initiated him into every form of vice, was 
 to be consecrated Archbishop of Cambrai, he was 
 naturally anxious that his old pupil, now the 
 greatest man in France, should be present at the 
 ceremony. The Due de Saint-Simon, however, 
 was determined to thwart Dubois in this ambition, 
 and pleaded so eloquently to the Due, pointing out 
 the pubhc odium and contempt he would incur by 
 assisting at such a mockery of the Deity, that he 
 gave his promise to stay away. 
 
 But Madame de Parabere had her reasons for 
 wishing the Regent to be present at the ceremony, 
 and told him in no ambiguous words that he 
 " must go." " But why ? " demanded the Due. 
 " Because I wish it." " And why do you wish it ? " 
 " Well," said Madame the Marquise (as she had 
 now become), " I will tell you. The Archbishop 
 and I have had a quarrel ; and if you are not 
 present at his consecration ceremony he will con- 
 clude that it is I who have kept you away. He 
 will thus become my enemy, and try to harm me in 
 a hundred ways. One thing he will certainly do : 
 he will part me from you ; and that would be 
 worse than death." In the face of such pretty 
 
210 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 pleading and argument what could the Regent 
 do but go ? He went, as Madame said he must ; 
 and thus Madame won the gratitude of the most 
 dangerous man in France. 
 
 But Philippe of Orleans, long as he remained 
 loyal to de Parabere's widow, was to abandon her 
 as he had abandoned every other woman who 
 smiled on him ; and Madame was wise enough to 
 accept her fate gracefully. She even anticipated 
 it, for " in 1721," Marais tells us, " she already 
 refused to see the Regent because he was in the 
 habit of frequenting the society of opera-dancers." 
 
 The final moment of parting, however, came 
 when she penned this dignified and touching letter : 
 " Instead of waiting until you send me into exile, 
 I shall go of my own free will. It is folly to drain 
 the cup to its last drop, for that drop so often proves 
 to be a tear of blood. Henceforth I live only for 
 God. I am leaving your world for ever, and we 
 shall only meet again beyond the grave." This 
 farewell sent, she retired to the home of her wedded 
 life, the Chateau de St Hferaye, where for a few years 
 she oscillated between piety and dalliance with 
 her old lover, Montluzon, the guardsman, who, 
 after years of hiding from justice (the result of a 
 fatal duel fought for her), reappeared to fan the 
 embers of her old passion into flame. 
 
 Thus, alternately sinning and praying, 
 grotesquely combining paternosters with love- 
 
A QUEEN OF THE PALAIS ROYAL 211 
 
 making, this strange woman spent the last years of 
 her hfe, far from the scenes of her old triumphs 
 and splendour, trusting, for the mercy of the God 
 she had neglected, to the Magdalene's plea, quia 
 muUum amavit. 
 
CHAPTER XVI 
 
 DIANE THE " SORCERESS " 
 
 For thirty years France was under the spell of the 
 
 " goddess Diana " ; the crescent moon, her symbol, 
 
 was everywhere, chiselled in marble, or flaunting 
 
 in gold ; the fame of her palaces, their splendid 
 
 architecture and priceless furnishing, travelled over 
 
 the world ; and her praises were sung in a dozen 
 
 languages. For twelve of these years she was the 
 
 ruler of France, supreme in power as in charm ; and 
 
 she carried her splendours and her witcheries into 
 
 the sixties, until the splinter of a shattered lance 
 
 hurled her from her throne, when it pierced the brain 
 
 of the King who, to his last day, was her idolater. 
 
 Diane de Poitiers, the woman whose very name 
 
 still exhales the " perfume of beauty, of aristocracy 
 
 and of power " three centuries and more after she 
 
 was dust, was cradled one September day in the 
 
 year 1499, in the heart of that age of chivalry which 
 
 her ancestors had done so much to adorn. She had 
 
 for father Jehan de Poitiers, Sire de St Villier, one 
 
 of a long line of doughty French chevaliers, skilled 
 
 in war and in the tourney ; and for mother Jehanne 
 
 de Batemay, daughter of a house no less noble and 
 
 distinguished. 
 
 212 
 
■'U/)// 
 
 ' ^iy .y /""/// e?J. 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 213 
 
 She was thus herself a flower of chivalry, bom 
 to inspire brave deeds under the stimulus of her 
 bright eyes. Had she been son and not daughter 
 of Sire Jehan she would beyond doubt have shone 
 in that brilliant galaxy of French knights of which 
 Bayard and Gaston de Foix, de Montmorency 
 and the Seigneur de la Pahsse were such brilliant 
 ornaments ; and her fame would have come down 
 to us in many a story of prowess against Spaniard, 
 Genoese or German. But though she was born 
 to a very different sphere of enterprise, there were 
 few manly sports in which she could not, even as a 
 child, hold her own with the "stronger sex." 
 
 At six she could swim and ride and shoot an 
 arrow with a skill that amazed all who knew her ; 
 at ten she was among the first of the " field " in 
 hunting the deer and wild boar ; and she was but 
 ten when her hand was promised in marriage to 
 Louis de Breze, Grand Seneschal of Normandy, 
 a man as old as her father, hunchbacked, and of 
 surpassing ugliness. Diane may well have shed 
 tears at being snatched so young from the pleasures 
 of her childhood to be the bride of the " ugliest 
 man in France," a man from whom she fled in 
 fright at the first sight of him. 
 
 But the Sire de St Villier was inexorable. It was 
 a great match for his daughter ; and in those days 
 no sentiment was allowed to interfere with nuptial 
 contracts. Thus it was that when Diane had 
 
214 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 barely seen her fifteenth birthday she was installed 
 in Normandy as Grande S^neschale, where she 
 spent nine unhappy years, and presented her lord 
 with two daughters. Then came a change which 
 wrought a transformation in her life, when Louise 
 of Savoy, mother of Frangois I., struck by her 
 beauty and character, invited the Seneschal's wife 
 to accompany her to the French Court. 
 
 No change could have been more welcome to 
 Diane than that which took her from the humdrum 
 life of her Normandy castle and the company of 
 her churlish, ill-favoured husband to the most 
 brilliant Court in Europe — a. Court, moreover, in 
 which she breathed the atmosphere of chivalry so 
 dear to her. She was at last ideally happy in her 
 new environment of fair women, among whom she 
 was the fairest, and of brave men, eager to dare 
 anything in return for the guerdon of a smile. 
 Dancing and banqueting, jousting and hunting, 
 made the days pass all too quickly for the emanci- 
 pated Diane, who had left her husband behind in 
 distant Normandy ; and if to such delights she 
 added coquetry, who shall blame her the first and 
 long-delayed fruits of her heritage of charm ? 
 
 Was Diane really beautiful, is a question to which 
 conflicting answers were given in her own day ; 
 and which it is naturally less easy to decide in ours. 
 Certainly she is very fair to look upon in a portrait 
 which may be seen to-day in Florence, " robed in 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 215 
 
 rose-coloured satin, sewn with pearls, a black train 
 streaming behind, a great jewel glowing at her 
 breast." When it was painted she was a woman 
 of thirty, in the maturity of her charms ; and yet 
 the face falls short of the standard of beauty. The 
 fine dark eyes are a little hard and calculating ; the 
 lips are too close pressed — " they 9,re hps for 
 commands and caprices rather than for caressing 
 words " ; and the cheek-bones are too pronounced. 
 The complexionrhowever,is brilhant in the extreme ; 
 the figure is opulent, and the dominant impression 
 is that of a striking, handsome (rather than lovely) 
 woman of abounding health and vitaUty. 
 
 Such was Diane in her prime, and such she 
 remained almost to the last, carrying her exquisite 
 complexion, bright eyes, and a face without a 
 wrinkle, into old age, long after the more ephemeral 
 charms of women young enough to be her daughters 
 had faded. The secret of her perennial youth was 
 no doubt in the life she led. At five o'clock, winter 
 and summer alike, she took the cold bath about 
 which so many strange stories were told by her 
 rivals, to whom baths were a very rare indulgence. 
 It was even said that she mingled gold flakes with 
 the water. 
 
 Long before other Court ladies were awake, Diane 
 was hunting, or galloping across country, with 
 cheeks aflame and eyes sparkling ; and after two 
 or three hours of such vigorous exercise she returned 
 
216 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to her bed, to spend the rest of the morning in the 
 company of her beloved books, which ranged from 
 romances of chivalry to treatises on astronomy. 
 Her meals, too, were almost Spartan in their 
 simplicity ; and thus it was that she retained 
 her youthfulness, and kept envious Time at arm's 
 length. 
 
 When romance had fled from many women 
 younger than herself, it had still to come to Diane, 
 and it came at last in unromantic guise. After 
 the Peace of Cambrai, France learned with joy that 
 the two young sons of her King were to be released 
 from their durance in Spain, where, at the bidding 
 of the Emperor Charles V., they had been long 
 detained as hostages for their father's good 
 behaviour ; and when Francis went in state to 
 meet his boys at Bayonne, Diane was among the 
 many courtiers who swelled his retinue. There 
 was double reason for rejoicing ; for not only were 
 the young princes to be restored to the land of 
 their birth ; the King, their father, was to marry 
 the sister of the Emperor who had so long been his 
 enemy, and peace was at last assured to France. 
 
 Arrived at Bayonne, none gave a warmer welcome 
 to the exiled boys than the Grande Seneschale, who, 
 at sight of the younger, Henry, Duke of Orleans, 
 took him in her arms as a mother welcoming 
 a long-lost child. He was then but a boy of 
 eleven, young enough to be the son of Diane, who 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 217 
 
 was twenty years his senior ; but, great as was the 
 disparity of years, that first warm embrace sealed 
 a mutual love, which was to last as long as life 
 itself. Diane was drawn irresistibly to the shy, 
 proud boy who during his short life had known so 
 Uttle love ; and he, in turn, was irresistibly drawn 
 to the woman who took him so spontaneously to 
 her heart. And when, a little later, Henry couched 
 his first lance in the joust, a child pitted against 
 a man, it was Diane's colours he wore, and it was 
 her bright eyes that nerved his arm. 
 
 From this first meeting there was no woman in 
 all the world for the King's younger son save Diane, 
 the mother of a child older than himself. The 
 Court scoffed at his infatuation. It was unnatural 
 — ^it was witchcraft, nothing else ! But to the 
 voice of scandal and derision both were equally 
 indifferent. 
 
 That Diane had enemies at the Court of France 
 was inevitable to a woman who had such a power 
 to charm and to rule, and these enemies now began, 
 under such encouragement, to unmask themselves. 
 The Court was, in fact, divided into two hostile 
 parties — one, the champions of the old order of 
 things, chivalry and the Catholic faith ; the other 
 with strong leanings towards Calvinism, and the 
 reaction it brought with it. Of the latter, the 
 Duchesse d'fetampes, the King's powerful mistress, 
 was the arch-spirit ; the Grande S^iieschale, of 
 
218 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the former ; and to this religious feud was added 
 the mutual jealousy of the two women, each 
 aspiring to be Queen of the Court. Moreover, 
 Marguerite de Valois, the King's sister, was no lover 
 of the Seneschal's lady ; the Queen treated her with 
 marked aversion, and Francis himself regarded her 
 as " dangerous." 
 
 Of the jealousies of these rival ladies of the 
 French Court many entertaining stories are told. 
 The Duchesse d'foampes had a powerful and 
 offensive weapon in the Grande Sen^schale's age, 
 which she never scrupled to use. Once, it is 
 said, she exclaimed aloud in Diane's hearing, 
 " I was born the very day on which Madame la 
 Seneschale was married ! " — ^an insult which Diane 
 never forgot, and for which she took sweet revenge 
 in later years. In order further to exasperate her 
 rival, the Duchesse encouraged the Court poet, 
 Clement Marot, to write scathing verses, ridiculing 
 her false hair, her false teeth, her rouge and her 
 antiquated coquetries — calumnies all ; but none the 
 less annoying. But Diane had stout friends — ^the 
 Comtes de Guise, de Montmorency, and many 
 another prince of the chivalry she adored, all 
 ready to fight her battles to the death. 
 
 The year 1533 brought a revolution in Diane's 
 life. Her husband left her a widow ; her boy-lover' 
 became heir to the throne on the death of his 
 brother, the Dauphin ; and in the same year a wife 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 219 
 
 was provided for him — at fourteen ! The Grande 
 Seneschale was now free to defy the world, and 
 from this time she openly adopted the new 
 Dauphin's colours of black and white ; while he 
 Wore her monogram blended with his own. 
 
 This strange union between the youthful prince 
 and the woman twenty years his senior, however 
 incongruous it may seem, was in many ways ideal. 
 He was shy, silent, morose, a moral weakhng ; 
 she was strong, bright, a woman of decided char- 
 acter and views, bom to command. She was thus 
 able to supply the very quaUties that he lacked. 
 " He leant on her absolutely," we are told. " He 
 made no decision, even in public, without first 
 consulting her ; and in everything she guided him 
 by her wisdom and knowledge of the world." 
 " She made him a lover, a poet, and a king." 
 Above all, she made a man of him. 
 
 And apart from this moral helplessness, which 
 called for her strength, there was much in the new 
 Dauphin that appealed powerfully to Diane. If he 
 was a moral coward, he was physically a youth of 
 many qualities. Although not handsome — ^his nose 
 was too large, his mouth too weak — he was weU 
 formed for all manly exercises, with a well-knit 
 figure, " all made of muscle." He excelled in 
 horsemanship ; he was skilled in the use of arms, 
 and had few rivals in any sport from hunting to 
 skating. He was one of the most daring and clever 
 
220 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 j ousters of his time ; and, perhaps curiously, he 
 was an absolute stranger to physical fear. 
 
 That he had a wife mattered nothing to his 
 infatuation for Diane, which grew with his years ; 
 and from her wedding day Catherine de Medicis 
 was condemned to look on while her husband took 
 all his affection to her rival. That her pride was 
 wounded, her heart outraged, was inevitable ; but 
 to the world she presented a smiling face, an object 
 of gentleness and patience. And, while she found 
 sympathy everywhere, from the King, whose heart 
 she had completely won, to the Duchesse d'lfctampes 
 who hated Diane even more than she did, she was 
 content to wait her time for the revenge she secretly 
 cherished. 
 
 Even the solace of children was denied her ; 
 for ten years passed before Catherine saw her first 
 infant in its cradle. The " middle-aged woman," 
 as she called Diane, who was now forty-four, still 
 kept her husband from her side, as she had done on 
 her very wedding night. Then, at last, this com- 
 pensation was hers — ^the gracious concession of her 
 rival ; and within the next dozen years she bore 
 ten sons and daughters to her husband. 
 
 In 1547 Francis died, and Henry at last came to 
 his crown. Diane, who had meanwhile blossomed 
 into the Duchesse de Valentinois, was now queen 
 in all but name ; and the very first act of her 
 queendom was to send the hated Duchesse 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 221 
 
 d'feampes into exile. She had waited long for 
 her revenge ; but it had come at last, as she meant 
 it to come — ^and it was very sweet. And now 
 Diane's full power was felt. The whole Court was 
 remodelled ; every high ofi&ce was filled with her 
 friends ; the Catholic faith was supreme, and the 
 Calvinists were trembhng for their very lives. At 
 her instigation Henry took a vow to exterminate 
 aU Huguenots ; and Diane had the satisfaction of 
 watching by his side many a heretic writhing at the 
 stake. 
 
 She had now reached the zenith of her magni- 
 ficence. The King was more than ever her slave ; 
 his courtiers were her creatures ; the royal ex- 
 chequer was hers to use as she would ; and how she 
 plundered it the world soon knew. All her long- 
 cherished dreams of splendour were now realised. 
 The greatest architects were set to work to design 
 for her palaces of surpassing magnificence or fairy- 
 like beauty, and every comer of Europe was 
 ransacked for their sumptuous furnishing. 
 
 Bernard Pahssy produced for her his most 
 exquisite pottery ; the Limousin brothers their 
 most wonderful enamels. Sculptors vied with each 
 other to fashion poems in marble ; and painters 
 to adorn her ceilings and walls with miracles of 
 art. Her gardens were fit haunts for fairies ; and 
 the light poured in floods of glory through stained 
 glass designed by Cousin. And all her environment 
 
222 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 was on a similar sumptuous scale, from her hunting- 
 parties and stables to her banquets and fetes. 
 
 " Her beautiful palaces rose up everywhere. 
 Amboise, ' supreme in the list of perched palaces ' ; 
 Chenonceaux, like a miniature Venice, with its 
 lakes and ponds where stately swans swam, and 
 carp with gold collars — a. love gift from Henry to 
 his ' only princess ' ; Blois, ' flowering, laughing, 
 living ' ; Chambord, immense, yet so light and 
 graceful with its spiral staircase and its square 
 pavilions " — ^and, above all, Anet, lovely as a palace 
 of dreams with its marvels of Oriental carpets and 
 Venetian mirrors ; its furniture of ebony and ivory 
 and gold ; its statues, its painting, pottery and 
 enamels. And everywhere the golden crescents of 
 Diane, and the twin letters D and H interlaced, as a 
 symbol for all time of the love that Unked Diane 
 and Henry. 
 
 And all these regal possessions she owed to the 
 infatuation of the man to whom she was always a 
 divinity rather than a mortal woman, and who 
 idolised her at sixty more than when she was in the 
 very prime of womanhood. All he lived for was 
 to be loved by her to the last ; and there is 
 pathos, as well as a deep sincerity, in his pleading, 
 " Never forget him who has never loved, nor ever 
 will love, anyone but thee," and " I count life's 
 richest gifts as baubles in comparison with thy 
 love." 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 223 
 
 Diane would have been less than woman if she 
 had made no return for such devotion. She never 
 wearied in her efforts to brighten his life and to 
 spur his feeble energy of will. " She amused as 
 well as dazzled him ; she was not content with 
 making him fall in love, she plunged him in a per- 
 petual state of ecstasy. ' ' But while thus rewarding 
 his idolatry she lost no opportunity of filling her 
 extravagant purse. She levied taxes, imposed 
 fines and extorted costly gifts. She dispensed 
 high offices at Court, in the Church and the army 
 to the highest bidders ; and she took a liberal 
 portion of any spoil that was going. Thus there 
 was no prodigahty in which her greedy exchequer 
 did not allow her to indulge. 
 
 The Queen herself was one of her subjects — ^to 
 such an extent that it was not she but Diane who 
 chose the nurses of her children, and prescribed how 
 they should be fed, doctored and educated ; and 
 Catherine, still long-suffering and waiting, allowed 
 her husband's friend to rule even over the nursery, 
 and accepted her husband's attentions when Diane 
 chose to spare him. 
 
 Thus for twelve years — and then the end came 
 suddenly and tragically. In June 1559 Paris was 
 en fete for the nuptials of Henry's daughter to 
 the King of Spain, and flocked in her thousands to 
 a regal tourney held in their honour. Catherine 
 pleaded in vain to the King that he shotild not 
 
224 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 enter the lists, for an astrologer had warned her 
 that he would be killed. But Henry laughed aloud 
 at such gloomy augury ; for he knew that he 
 was a match for the doughtiest knight in his 
 kingdom. 
 
 The first day passed, and the second, each adding 
 laurels to the victorious King. On the third day a 
 Scottish cavalier, Montgomery, had beaten all his 
 adversaries. The supreme moment had arrived 
 when Henry could show his subjects that there 
 was one man in France who could make even the 
 gigantic Scotsman bite the dust. Once more the 
 trumpets rang out for the last joust of the day ; 
 the rival champions thundered down on each 
 other, met with the crash of steel, and passed. 
 A moment later a cry of horror rose from the 
 onlookers : the King was reeling in his saddle ; he 
 fell to the ground. A splinter from the Scotsman's 
 shivered lance had entered his eye, and found a 
 lodging in his brain. Eleven days he Ungered 
 in agony ; and on loth July he was dead. The 
 astrologer's prophecy had come to its terrible 
 fulfilment. 
 
 With the death of her lover, Diane's day of 
 splendour closed. Catherine's hour had arrived, 
 and her first act of emancipation was to order her 
 supplanter to leave Paris, and to strip her of her 
 possessions— all but her palace of Anet, which was 
 inahenably her own. To Anet she retired to hide 
 
DIANE "THE SORCERESS" 225 
 
 her grief and her humiliation ; and here, less than 
 seven years later, she was followed to her last 
 resting-place by a " hundred poor persons dressed 
 in white, bearing torches, and muttering prayers 
 for ' Diane de Poitiers.' " 
 
CHAPTER XVII 
 
 A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 
 
 No lover of any age presents quite so difficult a 
 problem to our own as the first Napoleon, so con- 
 flicting are contemporary records. If we are to 
 believe Stendhal, for example, his attitude towards 
 his favourites was little removed from that of a 
 savage. " He made them writhe beneath the lash 
 of his contempt " ; his method of love-making was 
 almost brutal ; he regarded them as the pla5^hings 
 of an hour, to be enjoyed and flung aside the 
 moment a successor took his fancy. 
 
 " Monster ! " " Horrible tyrant ! " are the 
 epithets apphed to him by Madame Brancher, 
 Mademoiselle Duchesnois, Therese Bourgoin, 
 Leverd of the Theatre Fran^aise, and the ladies of 
 the Court whom the Imperial caprice had seemed to 
 distinguish for an instant. There is, in fact, over- 
 whelming proof that Napoleon inspired more fear 
 than affection in most of the women who thought 
 themselves honoured by his favour. 
 
 And yet there is equally little doubt that he could 
 be chivalrous and tender. To his two empresses, 
 we know, he was gentle, generous and considerate ; 
 and Mademoiselle Georges, who came to him 
 
 226 
 
yf Uf/T^/ZU'CJ^U^J 
 
 ^er'/Y/6'J 
 
A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 227 
 
 without the glamour of birth or rank, which always 
 commanded the respect of the parvenu, draws a 
 charming picture of the Autocrat of Europe as 
 a " tender and thoughtful lover, full of juvenile 
 ardour, as much in love as an officer of twenty." 
 " How," she wrote, long years after she had passed 
 out of his life, " how could one not be fascinated and 
 attracted to such a man ? He became small and 
 childish to please me. He was no longer the Consul ; 
 he was a man in love, but whose love had neither 
 violence nor roughness. He embraced you sweetly, 
 and his words were tender and modest." 
 
 There are few revelations more frank and 
 intimate than are furnished by the Memoirs of 
 Mademoiselle Georges, the beautiful tragedienne 
 who counted two emperors and three kings among 
 her lovers ; and who, for two years at least, retained 
 her supremacy in the favour of Napoleon, the most 
 inconstant of men. " It was," as M. Cheramy 
 says, " a veritable affection. It lasted till 
 Napoleon's death . ' ' Even in his last clouded hours 
 at St Helena he often spoke of her whom he had 
 formerly called his " beautiful Georgina," or his 
 " good Georgina." 
 
 Mademoiselle Georges was almost literally cradled, 
 one February day in 1787, on the stage which she 
 was to adorn for so many years. She was bom 
 in the theatre of Bayeux, during a performance of 
 Tartuffe and La Belle Fermiere. She had, needless 
 
228 ENSLAYERS OF KINGS 
 
 to say, the love of the theatre in her blood ; for her 
 father, George Weymer, was manager of a troupe 
 of strolling actors, and her mother, an enthusiastic 
 artiste, had won some provincial fame in soubrette 
 parts. " Leaving Bayeux at the age of ten 
 months," she says in her Memoirs, "my father 
 and mother came to Amiens—my father as chef 
 d'orchestre (a role which he combined with that of 
 impresario) , my mother to play the part of soubrette, 
 and my brother Charles, who already, at five years 
 old, scraped the violin. ... As quite a little one," 
 she ingenuously adds, " I was said to be very 
 pretty." 
 
 When little Marguerite (as her baptismal name 
 was) reached the age of five she had already 
 blossomed into a musician, singer, and actress of 
 considerable promise ; and was winning applause 
 on the stage as Perrette in La Petite Victoire, a 
 one-act opera. " Really," she says, " I was a great 
 personage ; in fact, it was very curious to see the 
 small five-year-old dairymaid, so small that, for 
 the milkcan which I had to carry on my head, my 
 mother was obliged to find me a cup ; and I had, 
 which made the thing completely farcical, a Guillot 
 and a Colas as big as Don Quixote." 
 
 Thus the budding tragedienne grew up to beauti- 
 ful girlhood, supremely happy in her roving hfe, 
 applauded to the echo by rustic audiences, petted 
 and spoilt by everyone— acting in opera, comedy 
 
A FAIR TRAGlfiDIENNE 229 
 
 and vaudeville, and varying her stage appearances 
 by taking money in the pay-box. " What happy 
 times they were ! " she exclaims, sixty years and 
 more later, when life had lost its savour. " Charm- 
 ing joys of childhood, how much I have regretted 
 you ! All the family were busy — ^how could we 
 ever be bored ? My father and mother had every- 
 body's esteem, and we were admitted into the best 
 society. There was not a ball or a festival without 
 Madame Georges' children. It was so joUy ; to 
 dream of another existence would have saddened 
 our hearts." 
 
 And so the happy, careless years passed aU too 
 quickly, irntU Mademoiselle Raucourt, the famous 
 actress, passing through Amiens, chanced to see 
 Mademoiselle, and was so struck by her beauty 
 and intelligence that, with her father's consent, she 
 carried her off to Paris to train her for her debut 
 at the Comedie Frangaise — ^for the life of an actress 
 in the first theatre in the world. " Farewell ! my 
 Amiens ! " she exclaims. " Farewell, my joyous 
 dances with my madcap companions ! But I shall 
 return. You wiU see me again certainly, in my 
 elegance. I shall arrive at the theatre in a carriage ; 
 and you will all of you crowd round to see your 
 little Mimi, who wUl never forget you." 
 
 Although Mademoiselle Georges was but fifteen 
 when this transformation came in her life, she 
 was already strikingly beautiful. " She was," 
 
230 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Mademoiselle Raucourt says, " the Venus of Milo 
 descended from her pedestal " ; and within a few 
 years her statuesque beauty reached its dazzling 
 zenith. " Her figure," says one chronicler, " is 
 that of the sister of Apollo when she advances on 
 the banks of Eurotas. Her whole person is made 
 to be offered as a model to Guerin's chisel " ; 
 another declares, " She is not a statue of Parian 
 marble ; she is Pygmalion's Galatea, full of warmth 
 and life." 
 
 " The arc of her eyebrows, traced with incom- 
 parable purity and strength, stretches over two 
 black eyes full of fire and tragic brilliance ; the 
 nose is narrow and straight, cut by oblique nostrils 
 passionately dilated, and joins the forehead with a 
 line of magnificent simplicity. The strong and 
 rather disdainful mouth has charming smiles, ex- 
 panding with quite Imperial grace ; the firm chin, 
 by a majestic contour, terminates the profile, which 
 is more that of a goddess than a woman." Her 
 hands were especially beautiful, " sweet little hands 
 broken by dimples, regular little royal hands, made 
 to carry the sceptre " ; and her arms, shoulders 
 and neck were of "an unheard-of richness and 
 magnificence." 
 
 Such was the superbly fashioned and beautiful 
 woman who took Paris by storm in 1802 in the 
 part of Clytemnestra. " Not sufficient measures," 
 Geoffrey tells us, *' were taken to restrain the extra- 
 
A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 231 
 
 ordinary crowd which such a famous debut was 
 bound to attract. All the guard was engaged at 
 the ticket-office, while the entrance door sustained 
 the most terrible siege. There assaults were made 
 which I could only make a tragical description of. 
 . . . Need one be surprised if people are suffocated 
 for such a superb woman ? " 
 
 This first sensational appearance was followed by 
 triumph after triumph — ^in Tancrede, Cinna, Didon, 
 Artaxerxes . The debutante was hailed as a greater 
 actress than even the divine Rachel ; all the 
 fashionable world of Paris flocked to pay her 
 homage ; and the First Consul himself sent her 
 messages of the most extravagant compliment. 
 She was fussed and petted by the Consul's family. 
 " I often lunched," she says, " with the Emperor's 
 mother and his brother Lucien. Then afterwards 
 I had to recite, Lucien giving me my cues, and fre- 
 quently playing whole scenes by himself. ... I 
 was the protegee of all that great family." 
 
 Lucien was, in fact, at this time the most ardent 
 of her legion of lovers. " He wished to place me 
 in a house of my own," she says, " giving me all 
 the masters possible. I was even taken to see the 
 house " ; but the " good Lucien " was called away 
 to Italy, sending Mademoiselle, as a parting gift, 
 a magnificent scarlet necessaire, with a hundred 
 golden louis at the bottom of the sUver-gilt teapot. 
 
 The lover who, a few years later, was to refuse 
 
232 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the crowns of Spain and Italy was quickly 
 succeeded by Prince Sapieha, " a great noble who," 
 she says, " was smitten with me " ; and who in- 
 stalled her in sumptuous apartments in the rue St 
 Honore, with a bedroom in lilac and embroidered 
 muslin, a drawing-room in pink silk and black 
 velvet, and a dining-room in white. " There is 
 nothing lacking," she exclaims. " I walk on the 
 magnificent carpets. I see myself reflected in 
 superb mirrors-^but I look no more frequently ! " 
 
 Life was now full of luxury and gaiety and the 
 intoxication of success for the daughter of the chef 
 d'orchestre. The Prince cared nothing for love ; 
 " he asked nothing but to kiss the tips of my 
 fingers, leaving me in perfect liberty and peaceful 
 innocence." But she tells of lovers less unselfish, 
 one of whom, a banker, insisted on putting her hair 
 in curl-papers, every one of which (and there were 
 twenty of them) she discovered was a five-hundred- 
 franc note. 
 
 But Mademoiselle's ambition was not yet satis- 
 fied. The First Consul seldom missed any of her 
 performances ; he led the applause which was 
 such music to her ears ; but he had never spoken 
 to her. " I should Uke to see him and speak to 
 him, ' ' she confesses . " I am told that his voice and 
 speech are very soft. And what a pretty little 
 hand ! It is seen to perfection, for he places it in 
 front of his box. Very hkely there is some amorous 
 
A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 233 
 
 intention in that. Why not ? Great men have 
 their weaknesses, too." 
 
 Then the most wonderful thing of all came to 
 pass. One night, on returning home from the 
 theatre, she found Napoleon's chief valet. Constant, 
 awaiting her with a request that she shoiild allow 
 herself to be taken to St Cloud the following evening 
 at eight o'clock, to receive the Consul's congratula- 
 tions in person. " I was seized with a kind of 
 fright," she confesses. Now that the occasion she 
 had longed for had come, she was " petrified " ; 
 she spent a sleepless night, and when the hour 
 arrived, and with it Constant and a carriage, she 
 was " ready to faint from fright." " Reassure 
 yourself," were Constant's soothing words. " You 
 will see how kind the Consul is. Be calm, he is 
 waiting for you with lively impatience." 
 
 There was, after all, no occasion for her fears ; 
 for when at last she reached St Cloud, and Napoleon 
 entered the magnificent room into which she had 
 been shown, his frank smile and simple greeting 
 soon restored her self-possession. " He came 
 towards me," she says, " with that charming smile 
 which only belongs to him, took me by the hand, 
 and made me sit on the enormous sofa. He lifted 
 my veil, which he threw on the ground without 
 more ado. ' How your hand trembles ! ' he said. 
 ' Are you, then, afraid of me ? Do I seem terrible 
 to you ? I found you exceedingly beautiful, 
 
234 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 madame, and I wished to compliment you. Tell 
 me your name.' ' Marguerita Josephine.' 
 ' Josephine pleases me, I like that name ; but I 
 would prefer to call you Georgina. Hein ! would 
 you like it ? '" 
 
 With such kind and homely words, Napoleon 
 soon dissipated her tremors ; and the hours passed 
 quickly in pleasant gossip until five o'clock in the 
 morning, when Mademoiselle at last took her leave, 
 with a promise to return on the morrow. " In 
 saying ' good-bye ' he kissed me on my forehead. 
 I was a silly ; I burst out laughing, and said to 
 him, ' Ah, that's splendid ! You have just kissed 
 Prince Sapieha's veil.' " At the words the Consul's 
 face was convulsed with rage. He took the veil, 
 tore it into fragments, and flung them on the floor ; 
 he snatched the chain from her neck and a ring 
 from her finger and ground them under his heels 
 in a transport of anger. Then his fury vanished 
 as quickly as it had come, and in a calm voice he 
 said, " Dear Georgina, you must not have any- 
 thing except what comes from me." 
 
 Such was the first meeting of Napoleon and the 
 tragedienne — a. meeting followed by hundreds of 
 others, each of which increased the adoration 
 Mademoiselle Georges felt for her hero lover. " I 
 loved the great man," she says, at a very early 
 stage of their intimacy, " who was surrounding me 
 with such consideration, who was not rough in his 
 
A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 235 
 
 desires, who waited the will of a child and bowed 
 to her caprices." And yet through all her delight 
 ran a vein of sadness. " One is envied the honour 
 of being noticed by the Consul," she says. " It is 
 grand ! It is splendid ! But at the bottom it is 
 sad — ^it is slavery with golden chains." 
 
 In her Memoirs Mademoiselle Georges draws 
 some charming pictures of Napoleon as lover — ^the 
 gentleness, playfulness, almost childishness of the 
 man who was so soon to be the master and terror 
 of the world. Now she is sitting with him on the 
 carpet before the library fire at St Cloud, " the 
 Consul playing with me just Uke a child. Then he 
 climbed a small ladder to reach a book from which 
 he wanted me to read to him, whereupon I wheeled 
 the ladder and him to the middle of the room. He 
 laughed and chmbed down, and gave me some Uttle 
 smacks on the cheek." Now he is playing " hide- 
 and-seek " with her with the zest of a schoolboy ; 
 an hour later he is kissing the tears from her eyes, 
 and filhng her lap with banknotes. 
 
 One day he snatches a wreath of white roses 
 from her head, places it on his own, and, looking at 
 himself in the glass, exclaims, " Ha, Georgina, how 
 pretty I am ! I look like a fly in some milk." 
 Then he began to sing, and made her sing a duet 
 with him from La Fausse Magie. Another day she 
 is walking arm-in-arm in the wood at St Cloud with 
 the " first man in the world." " How many times," 
 
236 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 she wrote in later and much-changed years, " have 
 I recalled that walk in the midst of my tribulations 
 and disappointments. It is all the same — ^they 
 can't take away that ; I have been for more than 
 two hours arm-in-arm with the master of the 
 world." 
 
 During these years Napoleon, beyond a doubt, 
 really loved his beautiful tragedienne. He was 
 amused by her artless chatter ; in her company he 
 found the relaxation and distraction which his 
 nerves and brain at fever-pitch sorely needed ; 
 and her peerless beauty of face and figure was an 
 unfailing dehght to him. But such golden days 
 could not last for ever with a lover so ambitious 
 and so unstable as Napoleon. While he was 
 dallpng with the actress, the First Consul had never 
 for a moment lost sight of the Imperial crown which 
 was his goal ; and that crown was now his. 
 
 " I was overwhelmingly sad," Mademoiselle 
 Georges records. " Why ? I ought to have re- 
 joiced to see the great Napoleon elevated to the 
 rank which he had won. But selfishness is ever 
 present. It seemed to me that, once upon the 
 throne, the Emperor would never see his poor 
 Georgina again. I did not care to see the corona- 
 tion ceremony. I had places in Notre Dame, but 
 nothing would have induced me to go there." 
 Nor did she go. She looked on at the gorgeous pro- 
 cession, and then returned home with a sad heart, 
 
A FAIR TRAGEDIENNE 237 
 
 saying to herself, "All is over." Even when 
 Napoleon paid his first visit as Emperor to the 
 theatre, she never once raised her eyes from the 
 stage to the box ; which, she says, " had recently 
 caused me so much joy." 
 
 Five weeks later Napoleon expressed a wish to 
 see her, and she was " received with the usual 
 kindness." " How beautiful you are, Georgina ! " 
 was his greeting. " What finery ! " " Could one 
 be too fine. Sire," she answered, with a sweeping 
 curtsy, " when one has the honour to be received 
 by your Majesty ? " "I accepted his kind words," 
 she says, " but I did not trust them. Ought I to 
 believe him ? Ought I to doubt him ? Yes, I 
 found him just the same as in the past ; but I do 
 not know why the Emperor had driven away my 
 First Consul. Everything is much grander and 
 more imposing. Let us look for happiness else- 
 where, if it exists at all." 
 
 Mademoiselle Georges now realised that her day 
 of supremacy was over. The First Consul, who had 
 loved her and whom she had loved, was dead ; 
 and the Emperor was much too magnificent a 
 personage to find any pleasure in the company of 
 an actress. Moreover, she knew that she had been 
 supplanted by a woman as beautiful as herself, 
 and much her superior in rank. And, resigning 
 herself to the inevitable, she left France to seek 
 solace and conquests elsewhere. 
 
238 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Other high-placed lovers she had in the years 
 that followed — ^the Emperor Alenander I. of Russia, 
 King Jerome, the Prince of Wiirtemberg, and many 
 another ; but to her last day there was only one 
 man in all the world for her, the " incomparable, 
 the immense " Napoleon, who had found her beauti- 
 ful and told her so. She no longer saw the man he 
 had been for her, but the man he had been for 
 France ; like those nymphs who, honoured for an 
 instant by the caresses of a god, never regarded his 
 visage, dazzled as they were by the blinding light 
 of his glory. 
 
 In the day of her pride she had said prophetic- 
 ally, "Perhaps I shall not have enough money 
 to bury me. ... I shall have a few spadefuls of 
 earth and a few flowers from my friends. What 
 more does one want ? " And when at last death 
 came to her, at the age of eighty, the last trace of 
 her beauty long fled, her once perfect form shapeless 
 and unwieldy from excessive stoutness, it was the 
 charity of Napoleon's nephew which alone rescued 
 her from a pauper's funeral. 
 
CHAPTER XVIII 
 
 THE KING AND THE WILD ROSE 
 
 The fourteenth Lotiis of France, probably the 
 handsomest boy who ever wore a crown, had little 
 to learn of the arts of love by the time he came to 
 his twentieth birthday. To the hot passions in- 
 herited from a long line of pleasure-loving ancestors 
 he allied physical attractions not one of them all 
 could boast, from the dark eyes, which flashed in 
 the oval of his well-chiselled face, to his tall, well- 
 knit figure, which combined the grace of the boy 
 with the dignity of a king. 
 
 He was barely sixteen when he was helplessly 
 caught in the toils of Olympe Mancini, one of 
 Cardinal Mazarin's batch of beautiful nieces — 
 opulent of figure, quick-witted and designing — 
 who led him a merry dance before her uncle found 
 a husband for her in the Comte de Soissons. No 
 sooner was the dangerous Olympe removed from 
 his path than he transferred his volatile affection 
 to Mademoiselle de La Motte-Argencourt, a blue- 
 eyed, golden-haired maid-of-honour, who in turn 
 was placed beyond the zone of mischief in a convent 
 at Chaillot, there to expiate her involuntary crime 
 of having charmed a king for a brief hour. 
 239 
 
240 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 The maid-of -honour thus removed at the bidding 
 of his anxious mother, Anne of Austria, Louis was 
 quick to find solace in the arms of a second of 
 Mazarin's nieces, Marie Mancini, a dark-skinned 
 beauty, " with eyes as black as her hair, and 
 astonishingly brilliant," who was passionately in 
 love with her handsome young King, and whom he 
 had vowed to marry, when a wife was found for him 
 in a hurry, in Marie Th6rese, Infanta of Spain. 
 
 But of all the women who in turn caught Louis' 
 vagrant fancy, from the crafty Oljmipe to the 
 middle-aged Madame de Maintenon, whom he made 
 wife when the passion of youth had at last grown 
 cold, there was probably not one who found such an 
 intimate place in his heart as Louise de la Valliere, 
 who after her brief period of queendom spent the 
 latter half of her life in the penitence and seclusion 
 of a convent. 
 
 Louise de la Valliere was bom one August day 
 in 1644, the daughter of Laurent de la Baume le 
 Blanc, who, after a brief and brilliant career as 
 a soldier, had retired to the life of a country gentle- 
 man on his manor of La VaUiere. There was good 
 blood in Louise's veins, for her ancestors had been 
 brave men since Perrin le Blanc followed the banner 
 of Joan of Arc. Many of them had died gallantly 
 on fields of battle ; others, from Jean le Blanc, 
 maitre d'hotel to Catherine de Medicis, had worn 
 " fine feathers " at the Royal Court. Louise had 
 
THE KING AND THE WILD ROSE 241 
 
 thus a pedigree to be proud of, as she grew from 
 childhood to girlhood, now amid the ancestral 
 splendours of the family castle at Amboise, now in 
 the more modem and modest manor house of La 
 Valliere. 
 
 She was but a child of seven when her father's 
 death left her mother a widow, to find a second 
 husband in the Marquis de Saint Remi, a widower, 
 with a daughter of the same age as Louise ; and we 
 soon find the joint famihes transferred to the Blois 
 Court of Gaston d'Orleans, the King's uncle, whose 
 first steward de Remi was. Here Louise spent a few 
 of her happiest years, with Monsieur's children for 
 playmates, and with the Ufe and glamour of a Royal 
 Court around her. And here she had her first 
 experience of love ; for there were many attractive 
 youths at Gaston's Court, and all of them had a 
 smile and more for the pretty, golden-haired maid 
 from La Valliere. 
 
 " Next door to the Remis," M. Jules Lair tells us, 
 " lived the Bragelonges ; a young man of this 
 family saw Louise, and having seen her, felt his 
 heart stir in his breast. He said it and he wrote 
 it. There were answers, further declarations, more 
 answers, a little correspondence, in fact, which the 
 parents soon discovered and suppressed. It is 
 like the blood in springtime ; young passion has 
 these outbursts, which disdain reason and die 
 without leaving a pang behind. Not yet has love 
 
 Q 
 
242 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 spoken, this is but the love of love." Thus early 
 —for she was still but thirteen — did Louise make 
 her first maiden curtsy to Love, which was to play 
 so great a part in her life. 
 
 At Blois, too, no doubt she first set eyes on the 
 young King, still but a boy of nineteen, whose life 
 was destined to be so romantically linked with hers, 
 but who seems at that time to have had no eyes 
 for the shy, blue-eyed girl who was his cousins' 
 playfellow. Had the timid maiden any curiosity, 
 we wonder, any furtive glances, for the King of 
 whom she had heard so much, as she stood modestly 
 obscure behind the ladies of Orleans ? 
 
 From Blois M. Remi was transferred to the 
 Luxembourg Palace when Gaston d'Orleans died, 
 and his widow. Marguerite of Lorraine, transferred 
 her Court to Paris ; and here Louise was introduced 
 to all the glitter and gaiety of the world of fashion 
 in the French capital. Nor was it long before she 
 found herself in the very heart of it, when she was 
 appointed maid-of-honour to the new Madame — 
 Henrietta, the sixteen-year-old bride of Phiiippe 
 d'Orleans, the King's brother, and sister to our own 
 Charles IL 
 
 Louise was now in her seventeenth year, and in 
 the first bloom of her girhsh beauty. She was tall, 
 we are told7 with a slim, Ussom and graceful figure. 
 " In riding-dress she looked intensely graceful. A 
 charming head crowned her healthy young form. 
 
THE KING AND THE WHvD ROSE 243 
 
 Her complexion was very fair ; her blue eyes had 
 an indescribable charm — ^they were soft and full of 
 expression. Hair of hght gold framed her beauti- 
 ful face. The sound of her voice, extraordinarily 
 sweet, lingered in one's ears ; and those who heard 
 it never forgot it." She was not one of those 
 perfect beauties whom one often admires without 
 loving. She was intensely lovable ; and that line 
 of La Fontaine, " Et la grace, phis belle encore que 
 la beaut e," might have been written of her. 
 
 There could be no greater contrast than between 
 this shy, sweet, delicately fashioned girl of the blue 
 eyes and golden hair, and the dark, passionate 
 beauty of the Mancini girls, one of whom, Marie, 
 still had the boy-King in her toils ; and it is perhaps 
 small wonder that, when Anne of Austria was 
 searching for a maiden who could lure her son from 
 the seductions of Mazarin's niece, her choice should 
 fall on this " little wild rose " from La Valliere. 
 
 Meanwhile, however, Louis was playing the 
 cavaUer to his brother's new bride, " Madame " 
 Henrietta of England, whose shadow he was. At 
 Fontainebleau Louis and his sister-in-law were 
 inseparable. When she went out bathing every 
 day he was her companion. After supper, in com- 
 pany with the gallants of the Court, they got into 
 little carriages, and drove to the sound of violins 
 along the grassy banks of the canal. " These 
 woodland drives lasted until two or three o'clock 
 
244 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 in the morning, and undoubtedly had an air of 
 great impropriety." Water fStes and hunting- 
 parties, boating excursions, ballets, balls and con- 
 certs followed each other, and in them all Louis 
 was at Madame's side, making open love to her 
 before the eyes of his courtiers. 
 
 Anne of Austria was driven to despair by her 
 son's conduct. His passion for Mazarin's niece 
 was bad enough — ^but this shameless love-making 
 to his brother's wife was an outrage. At any cost 
 it must be stopped ; and it was to Louise de la 
 Valliere that she looked to extricate her son from 
 the toils in which he was caught. Thus it was that 
 innocence was bartered for the saving of a dissolute 
 king ; and the " little floweret half hidden, but 
 betrayed by its own sweetness," was made to 
 bloom beneath the gaze of him who was soon 
 to be known as the " Roi Soleil." 
 
 Nor was Louis reluctant to play his part in his 
 mother's amiable design. A lady-love more or less 
 mattered little to this royal Lothario, and he was 
 content for a time to leave even Madame's side 
 while he dallied with her pretty maid. " Every- 
 one," we are told, " thought her lovely. Several 
 young men made love to her " ; and among them 
 the Comte de Guiche, the handsomest rou6 in 
 France. But when Louis entered the field there 
 was no room for any rival. Louise, her little head 
 full of romance, could not long resist so gallairt a 
 
■JA^^ ^M^A&>J (mJa^ /a/us-. 
 
 ^^^. 
 
THE KING AND THE WILD ROSE 245 
 
 lover, who came to her in royal guise ; nor did she 
 struggle against Fate. She quickly learnt to love 
 him for himself, and gave him all her heart, in frank 
 and glad surrender. As for the King, he found for 
 once that pla5dng with love was a dangerous game, 
 and before he realised it he was deeply in love with 
 her as she with him. 
 
 Many pretty tales are told of this wooing of 
 the " wild rose " by the King of France. In the 
 evenings, we learn, " he would get out of Madame 's 
 carriage and go to that of La Valli^re, of which the 
 door was shut ; and, as it was night and dark, he 
 could speak with her with much less reserve." 
 Once when a storm broke over the royal party 
 everyone ran to the nearest shelter, leaving Louis 
 to take care of the maid-of -honour. " Take my 
 arm," said the King, " we will go to the chateau." 
 He knew the grounds quite well enough to lose 
 himself for an hour, when he had a mind. " I 
 am getting very wet," Louise ventured presently. 
 " Count the drops of rain," answered the gallant 
 Louis, " and I will give them to you in pearls." 
 On another occasion when he placed in Louise's 
 hand the diamonds he had won in a Versailles 
 lottery, " How beautiful they are ! " she exclaimed, 
 her blue eyes a-sparlde, as she made a motion to 
 return them. " The hands in which they find 
 themselves," was the King's answer, " are much 
 too lovely for them ever to return to mine." 
 
246 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Such are a few of many stories told of these idylUc 
 days. No wonder that both the Queen-Mother 
 and Madame grew alarmed when they saw how deep 
 was the King's infatuation for the maid-of-honour. 
 What was designed as a distraction from more 
 dangerous dallying had already become a profound 
 passion such as no other woman had been able to 
 awake in Louis. Even Louise, when she reahsed 
 her danger, would have been glad to escape, but 
 she was powerless against a love which now 
 absorbed her life. We know, from her own later 
 confession, that, even in those early days, " remorse 
 spoke quickly enough, never ceasing to cry out in 
 the midst of her glorious moments." But remorse, 
 the anger of Madame and Anne of Austria, and the 
 scandalous tongues of jealous Court ladies were all 
 equally powerless to stay the course of Destiny. 
 She was Louis' body and soul, and he was hers ; 
 and in comparison with such happiness as this 
 nothing else in the whole world mattered. 
 
 Absence only served to fan the flames of the 
 King's passion ; for when once Louise was packed 
 off to Vincennes, to get her out of his way, Louis 
 raced after her, fast as his horse cguld carry him, 
 and after a blissful hour with her was back again 
 at Fontainebleau, having covered thirty-seven 
 leagues betwixt dawn and nightfall. " Almost 
 indifferent to external things, the lovers loved 
 anything which brought them together ; the ball 
 
THE KING AND THE WILD ROSE 247 
 
 where they clasped hands, the chase where they 
 rode side by side, the sound of music or the deep 
 silence of the woods — ^all were equally propitious to 
 love confidences." 
 
 And while she was thus being wooed by the King, 
 Louise was content to occupy her tiny room among 
 the garrets under the palace roof. She sought no 
 gifts, no grandeur. All she asked was love ; and 
 this she had in abundance. When Mademoiselle 
 de Tonnay-Charente (later known to fame as 
 Madame de Montespan) made her first appearance 
 at the Tuileries, dazzling all with her beauty, 
 Louise had no moment of jealousy ; for the King 
 had eyes for no other woman. His passion waxed 
 fiercer day by day ; he knew no happy hour that 
 was not spent by her side. 
 
 But Louise's bed was not all roses even in these 
 halcyon days. Her lover had many attacks of 
 fierce jealousy which found expression in violent 
 outbursts of rage. After one such outburst, when 
 Louis had retired to bed without making up the 
 quarrel, she " thought all was over, and lost her 
 head." 
 
 Flying from the Tuileries at dawn, after a sleep- 
 less night, she tramped the Paris streets until at 
 last she found refuge in an obscure convent, where 
 she collapsed, worn out with fatigue, cold and utter 
 misery. When news at last came to the King that 
 she had left the palace, and where she was to be 
 
248 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 found, he " galloped off there, his face hidden in a 
 grey cloak. He found her still in the parlour, 
 lying on the ground, weeping wildly." A few 
 words of comfort and soothing and the pressure of 
 warm lips on her tear-stained face quickly brought 
 the light to her eyes, and Louise was soon on her 
 way to the Tuileries, all the happier for a quarrel 
 which had proved such a renewal of love. 
 
 Louise was now the acknowledged mistress of 
 the King, a role which she played to the end with 
 a rare modesty and unselfishness, disarming much 
 of the malice of the Queen-Mother and of Madame, 
 and the jealousies of the Court ladies. Time and 
 familiarity seemed powerless to quench her lover's 
 passion. They frolicked together, "like holiday 
 children," in the woods of Versailles ; they danced 
 together in ballets, she as a shepherdess, he as a 
 shepherd ; they wrote passionate love verses to 
 each other. And while her husband was thus dally- 
 ing with the maid-of-honour, his queen, Marie 
 Therese, was shedding tears of loneliness and 
 neglect in her apartments, compelled to stay there 
 even on state occasions, because her husband 
 openly announced " he preferred the company of 
 La VaUi^re." 
 
 Thus the years passed ; Louise, although the 
 King's avowed maztresse en titre, leading the same 
 simple life as when she was a maid-of-honour — 
 living, even in the Palais Brion, which Louis gave 
 
THE KING AND THE WILD ROSE 249 
 
 to her, " in a retired manner, seldom going out, and 
 dressed in a loose robe. Those whom she received 
 in the evenings for card-playing saw her only in 
 bed." When Marie Therese once, at death's door 
 as she thought, begged her husband to get La 
 Valliere married, he gave the required promise, but 
 recalled it the moment his wife was out of danger, 
 declaring to Louise on his kneesj " I should be a 
 vile wretch, indeed, if I could live for anyone but 
 you." To which she made answer, " I could die 
 easily enough ; but I could not give you up. If 
 you cease to love me I know quite well that life 
 would hold nothing for me." 
 
 But it was not in Louis' nature to be always true 
 to any woman ; and when the year 1666 came it 
 became evident, even to Louise, that the charm 
 was broken. In vain she protested, " Don't think 
 that my glass does not show me how I have altered. 
 I am not pretty now. I have lost all my looks, 
 and am afraid, that being so, you will want fresh 
 beauties to admire. But be very sure you will not 
 find elsewhere all that I give you." Louis declared 
 that it was her heart that he prized, and not a 
 fresh complexion and bright eyes. But she knew 
 that her day of supremacy was ended ; and that 
 already she had been supplanted by Madame de 
 Montespan, a woman more lovely than she had 
 ever been. 
 
 On the time of disillusion that followed this 
 
250 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 discovery, with all its mute sufferings, as she saw 
 the gulf widen between her and the man she loved, 
 we may not dwell. She saw Montespan proudly 
 usurping her place, and the King's passion turned 
 to coldness ; until, unable any longer to endure the 
 pain, she sought refuge from the world of vanities 
 behind the veil of a Carmelite nun. Here, as 
 Sister Louise de la Mis6ricorde, she found such 
 peace as the world can give, declaring, within a 
 year of taking her vow, " I am so absolutely 
 tranquil about all that may happen that I look 
 upon health, illness, rest, work, joy or trouble in 
 the same light." 
 
 And as a nun she died thirty-six years later in 
 terrible suffering, praying with her last breath, 
 " Lord, if you increase my anguish, increase my 
 patience also. It is fitting that a sinner should die 
 in desperate agony." They buried her as all her 
 sisters in religion are buried ; and, obeying the 
 usages of the order, a little stone bearing only her 
 rehgious name and the date of her death was placed 
 above the mould which covered her. 
 
CHAPTER XIX 
 
 A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 
 
 HiL^NE Massalska's earliest memory was of the 
 nightmare horrors of a flight from " a country where 
 she saw nothing but fierce-looking soldiers whose 
 appearance alone frightened her " — a. long, seem- 
 ingly endless flight, during which the five-year-old 
 child clung to the protecting arm of her uncle, or 
 sobbed herself to sleep on his breast. 
 
 It was a turbulent time for her native Poland. 
 Catherine the Great had placed its crown on the 
 head of her discarded lover, Stanislas Poniatowski, 
 and the country was ablaze from end to end with 
 rebellion. But the patriots of the Bar were power- 
 less against the Russian hosts which Catherine 
 poured into their ill-fated land. After a crushing 
 defeat the leaders had to choose between flight and 
 a worse fate ; and among those who chose the more 
 discreet alternative was their leader. Prince Ignace 
 Massalska, the powerful and rich Bishop of Wilna, 
 who carried with him into exile his orphaned 
 nephew and niece, Helene and her brother Xavier, 
 who had been left to his care. Thus, amid the 
 flames-of war and the perils of flight, life opened 
 for the little daughter of Poland whose future was 
 231 
 
252 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 destined to be as adventurous and disturbed as that 
 of her own ill-fated land. 
 
 Safely arrived in France, the Bishop was anxious 
 that his little nephew and niece should receive an 
 education worthy of their rank and fortune, and 
 H61ene was promptly placed under the charge of the 
 nuns of the Abbaye-aux-Bois, in the most fashion- 
 able and select of all the schools for the girls of 
 Paris — ^in which every pupil and mistress alike 
 was a member of the haute noblesse. Helene, child 
 though she was, we are told, had " a nurse, with 
 apartments of her own and thirty thousand livres 
 (£1200) for pocket-money " ; and inaugurated her 
 school hfe with a " collation " for her fellow-pupils 
 which cost twenty-five louis. 
 
 Here she spent several ideally happy years, 
 holding her httle head up as proudly as any of 
 her blue-blooded school friends, adored by both 
 teachers and pupils for her beauty, her gifts, and her 
 winsomeness ; and, as became a httle PoUsh mad- 
 cap, the ringleader of all mischief — " pouring ink 
 into the holy-water stoup, blowing out lamps, 
 unfastening bell-ropes, creeping into the cells of the 
 novices at midnight to chatter and eat sweets," or 
 coquetting with the kitchen-boy next door, who 
 would pass to her dainty morsels through a hole 
 in the garden wall, as the tribute of his homage. 
 
 On one memorable occasion Helene headed an 
 insurrection against an unpopular teacher. With' 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 253 
 
 her small army of rebels, she seized the kitchen 
 premises, thus cutting off supplies, barricaded and 
 placed a guard over the doors, and " held her fort " 
 until the authorities were brought to a proper state 
 of submission, and the hated mistress was dis- 
 missed. But in spite of all such escapades and 
 defiance of all discipUne, we learn, the " affection of 
 Madame de Rochechouart (the headmistress) for 
 the ' httle wild thing from Poland/ who in return 
 quite ' worshipped her,' was shared by the whole 
 convent." 
 
 Thus the years passed happily and merrily for the 
 Bishop's niece, whose gifts were at least equal to her 
 love of mischief. She won more than her share of 
 prizes, she was the most skilful and graceful dancer 
 in the school, while her fame as an actress travelled 
 far beyond the school walls. After seeing her act 
 Esther, " in dress embroidered with diamonds and 
 pearls worth a hundred thousand crowns," the 
 Duchesse de Montemart begged Madame de Roche- 
 chouart that she might be allowed to act the part 
 of Joas, in Athalie, at her house ; and Helene 
 achieved such a triumph that Mole, whom the 
 Duchesse had engaged to train her company, " was 
 obUged to admit that she played Joas better than 
 the child at the Com6die Frangaise." 
 
 But the time was now coming to find a husband 
 for the pretty madcap ; for in those days many a 
 little aristocrat was taken from her books straight 
 
254 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to the altar, to return to her studies the bride of a 
 noble possibly older than her own father. There 
 were many such girl-wives among Helene's school- 
 fellows, countesses and duchesses who brought to 
 their lessons a new dignity, and assumed the airs of 
 great ladies. Of one bride of twelve, Hel^ne tells 
 us : " She returned the same day, having received 
 magnificent wedding presents ; but what pleased 
 her most was that we all called her ' Madame ' 
 d'Avaux. Everyone gathered round her and asked 
 her a hundred questions. She told us frankly that 
 her husband was very ugly and very old, and that 
 he was coming to see her the next day. We had a 
 glimpse of him from the windows when he arrived, 
 and thought him horrible ! " 
 
 For the richly dowered Helene there was no lack 
 of suitors. The Comtesse de Brionne, one of the 
 greatest ladies of Louis' Court, would gladly have 
 called her daughter-in-law. Prince Frederick de 
 Salm, the handsomest roue in France, would have 
 been equally glad to call her wife, but the Bishop 
 was not disposed to give his niece to a man who, 
 however high born, had so evil a reputation. And 
 the Princesse de Ligne-Luxembourg made no con- 
 cealment of her anxiety to secure the pretty heiress 
 for her nephew. Prince Charles de Ligne. 
 
 In all this matrimonial scheming, Helene's wishes, 
 as was usual, were the last to be consulted. It was 
 necessary to procure for her the best marriage pos- 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 255 
 
 sible; and her uncle, the Bishop, was much flattered 
 by the prospect of an alliance with the semi-royal 
 house of Ligne — with the son and heir of the 
 great de Ligne, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, 
 Grandee of Spain, Field-Marshal and Chamberlain, 
 with a score of titles of nobility, and one of the 
 greatest, as he was the most fascinating and gifted, 
 of men in France. And to the Bishop's authority 
 was added the subtle influence of Madame de Pailly, 
 who dazzled the schoolgirl's eyes with such visions 
 of the splendours of the Lignes, their lineage, their 
 palaces, their diamonds — " especially certain 
 enormous diamond earrings, known as ' girandoles,' 
 that Prince Charles's wife would wear on state 
 occasions " — ^that her consent was at last won. 
 
 The wedding which speedily followed was cele- 
 brated on a scale of magnificence worthy of such an 
 august alliance. The King and Queen were present 
 at the signing of the contract at the palace of Ver- 
 sailles. Helene took to her husband a dowry of 
 Polish estates valued at one million eight hundred 
 thousand roubles. Her trousseau was provided, 
 at a cost of one hundred thousand crowns, by her 
 uncle, the Bishop, who guaranteed her sixty thou- 
 sand roubles a year ; and Prince Charles's wedding 
 gift from his father was an income of thirty 
 thousand livres, which was to be doubled if he 
 had children. 
 
 The religious ceremony, to Helene's dehght, was 
 
256 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 celebrated at the Abbaye-aux-Bois, with her school- 
 fellows as guests-of-honour ; and when at last 
 the time came for the bride's departure, " before 
 stepping into the coach-and-six, with its postilions 
 in the pink and silver livery of the Lignes, that was 
 waiting to bear her from the house in which she had 
 been so happy, the emotional girl went quickly to 
 the choir chapel, where her beloved Madame de 
 Rochechouart was buried, to offer up a prayer on 
 her tomb." 
 
 A splendid welcome awaited the Prince and his 
 bride at Beloeil, the ancestral home of the Lignes in 
 Flanders. She was greeted by the tenants of the 
 estate dressed as shepherds and shepherdesses, h la 
 Watteau. One splendid f^te succeeded another in 
 gorgeous and bewildering succession — ^banquets and 
 balls, concerts and/eMAC d' artifice, while the chateau 
 was filled with distinguished guests from all parts 
 of France. To the bride of sixteen, fresh from her 
 convent school, it seemed as if she had stepped into 
 fairyland. The Prince de Ligne was enchanted 
 with his son's wife ; even the haughty Princesse 
 condescended to say that, "she was all that one 
 could desire in a daughter-in-law " ; while all 
 conspired to turn her little head with their homage 
 and flatteries . As for her husband, who was frankly 
 " over head and ears " in love with his beautiful 
 bride, he was a negligible quantity to her ; for he 
 was a serious-minded youth, with little interest in 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 257 
 
 life apart from his love of pictures and his hobby of 
 collecting engravings — as removed as the poles, in 
 tastes and temperament, from his gay, laughter- 
 loving, pleasure-seeking wife. 
 
 As long as the Prince de Ligne, charming, courtly, 
 and devoted to her, remained at Beloeil, the days 
 passed on golden feet for Helene ; but when, after 
 six months, he flitted off to Versailles, and her hus- 
 band rejoined his regiment, the time began to pass 
 wearily. The Princesse de Ligne, with her frigid 
 atmosphere, her strict sense of decorum and her 
 autocratic will, was no amiable lady to live with ; 
 and it was not long before the " little rebel " rose 
 in arms against her mother-in-law's virtuous 
 lectures and cold disapproval. She was deter- 
 mined that she would not submit to the " tyranny " 
 of the Princesse, and demanded the estabUshment 
 in Paris that had been promised to her on her 
 marriage. And, as was usual with her, she had 
 her way, in spite of her mother-in-law's strenuous 
 opposition, and was soon transported to the Court 
 of Versailles, the gayest and giddiest among all 
 " the butterflies of fashion who fluttered from 
 pleasure to pleasure," heedless of the rumbling 
 that heralded the storm of the Revolution. 
 
 It was in Paris that her first child, Sidonie, was 
 bom ; but both at Paris and Vienna, to which she 
 next flitted, the gulf between herself and her 
 husband surely widened, until, utterly weary of 
 
258 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 him, and disgusted by his infatuation for the 
 celebrated Countess Kinsky, she at last left him 
 for a long visit to her native Poland, under the 
 pretext of looking after her estates there. 
 
 Arrived at Warsaw, and installed in the Massalska 
 palace, H61ene, whose reputation for beauty, wit 
 and fascination had preceded her, was hailed as 
 queen of the brilliant Court which King Stanislas 
 had gathered round him. The greatest gallants 
 vied with each other for her smiles, among them 
 the Grand Chamberlain, Count Vincent Potocki, the 
 most handsome and courtly man in Poland, a cadet 
 of a historic house which ruled over a quarter of 
 a milhon vassals, and boasted a revenue of nine 
 million florins. 
 
 Count Vincent had already divorced his first wife, 
 niece to the King, in order to marry the Countess 
 Anna Mycielska, who was the mother of his two 
 sons ; but he was powerless to resist the fascination 
 of such a woman as Princesse Charles de Ligne, as 
 she proved herself equally powerless against the 
 assaults of the handsome and courtly Count. On 
 each side it appears to have been love at first sight, a 
 love in whose path Fate had placed many obstacles. 
 When news of the liaison came to Countess Anna's 
 ears at Kowalowka, she returned post-haste to 
 Warsaw. Violent scenes ensued between her and 
 her faithless husband, followed by scenes between 
 Helene and the Count, until the latter, in despair of 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 259 
 
 pacifying the rival woman, took refuge in flight. 
 But even in flight there was no escape for him ; for, 
 after writing a heartbroken letter, in which she 
 vowed that she abandoned all claim to his affection, 
 while " swearing that he should be the eternal 
 object of hers," Helene followed him to Kowalowka, 
 and quickly had him in her toils again. 
 
 She was, however, by no means content to be the 
 mistress, the plaything, of the man she loved so 
 recklessly. She must be his wife ; and, with this 
 object, she set to work to procure divorces, then 
 too easily obtained, for both him and herself. One 
 obstacle was quickly removed by the death of her 
 husband, on a battlefield near Mons, the news of 
 which so pleased her that she wrote to her lover : 
 " A cannon-ball has carried off Prince Charles. I am 
 free, free at last ! It is an act of Providence. As 
 Madame Sevignesaid on hearing of Turenne's death, 
 ' That cannon was loaded from all eternity ! ' " 
 
 But Countess Anna still blocked the way to the 
 altar ; and the divorce decree, which her uncle had 
 promised to procure, was long in coming from Rome. 
 Too impatient to await its arrival, the reckless pair 
 were secretly wedded at mignight in a chapel on 
 the outskirts of Vienna. As the bride entered the 
 chapel, she suddenly stopped short and looked 
 before her with terror in her eyes. In the dim and 
 flickering light of the tapers she fancied she saw 
 three coffins in the aisle between her and the altar. 
 
260 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 In an ins;tant the vision had gone ; but it remained 
 in her memory until it had its terrible realisation. 
 
 Life was very sweet now for Helene, Countess 
 Potocki — a life of peace and profound happiness 
 amid the rural beauties that surrounded her hus- 
 band's home, Kowalowka. Her only occupation 
 was to please the man she loved ; and with this 
 object she decked hex beauty in every bizarre 
 costume of her native land, " to-day in a poppy- 
 coloured dress of Turkish material, trimmed with 
 silver a la Mameluke ; the next day, in a polonaise 
 of white Indian silk, embroidered with pink flowers ; 
 another day, in a Cossack tunic of dyftich fringed 
 with gold." 
 
 But such halcyon days were not destined to last 
 long. The Countess Anna, hearing of the marriage 
 in distant Paris, was, as she wrote to the Bishop of 
 Wilna, returning to Poland, " to take steps to break 
 up the illegal union " — ^for the divorce had not yet 
 been decreed. The Count and Countess and the 
 Bishop were all in equal alarm, and spent three 
 months of misery and anxiety before the Countess 
 could be persuaded to withdraw her threat, on the 
 very day when the Bishop, against whom her chief 
 anger seems to have been directed, was arrested on 
 a charge of high treason, and, after being dragged 
 ahve through the streets of Warsaw for seven hours, 
 was finally hanged on a gibbet in front of the 
 cathedral. 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 261 
 
 But trouble was now gathering thickly around 
 Hel^ne, Her beloved Poland was divided between 
 Russia, Prussia, and Austria ; her estates were con- 
 fiscated ; and the Countess Anna set up a claim for 
 her son to be declared sole heir to Count Vincent's 
 fortune. Although thus stripped of fortune for 
 herself and of all prospects for the children of her 
 second marriage, she still had her hiisband, " whom 
 she regarded as the ideal of perfection, her two little 
 boys and her baby girl, whom she adored, and her 
 beautiful home." " What more can I desire ? " 
 she exclaimed, little knowing how soon these 
 remaining blessings were to be taken from her. 
 
 Within a few weeks her three children — first her 
 baby, then her second son Vincent, and last, Alexis, 
 her firstborn — were suddenly snatched from her 
 arms by death ; and as she stood by the side of the 
 grave in which two of her children lay, and saw the 
 little bier of the third lowered into it, the memory 
 of the three cofiins she had seen on her wedding 
 night came back to her. " Three ! There are 
 really three," she shrieked, and fell insensible to 
 the ground. 
 
 Before she had recovered from this terrible grief, 
 Kowalowka, her beautiful home, was seized by the 
 Count's creditors, and the contents of the chateau 
 dispersed, her own portrait being sold for a few 
 florins. She was now compelled to make her home 
 at Brody, in GaUcia, in a chateau " situated in a 
 
262 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 swamp filled with frogs that croaked night and 
 day," in a country which was " the abomination of 
 desolation." Here, as if Fate had not been suffi- 
 ciently unkind, still more trouble awaited her. 
 Her husband began to grow weary of her, finding 
 constant fault with her, and, worse than all, finding 
 his chief pleasure in the society of her companion, 
 a Polish young lady as fair as herself. 
 
 The crisis was reached when she surprised the 
 lovers in a compromising situation. A terrible 
 scene followed ; and within a quarter of an hour the 
 Countess fled, in tears, from her husband's roof 
 to that of her sister at Klekotow. When, after a 
 week's absence, she was induced to return home, 
 it was only to find the old quarrels and jealousies 
 revived, which once more drove her to flight. This 
 time the Prince de Ligne acted as peacemaker, and, 
 with much difficulty, persuaded her to go back to 
 her husband. " When she arrived at the chateau 
 he was waiting at the door to greet her. At the 
 sight of him she felt as if her heart would break. 
 She leapt from the carriage, and flung herself into 
 his arms. ' Oh, Vincent, how I love you ! ' she 
 murmured brokenly as he kissed her. Only five 
 days separated her departure and return, but the 
 time was sufficient to convince her that her heart 
 was bound to his for ever." 
 
 Shortly after this second reconciliation the 
 Potockis took up their abode in Paris. The 
 
A DAUGHTER OF POLAND 263 
 
 Revolution had swept away many of her old friends 
 and schoolfellows, who had walked with firm step 
 and proudly carried head to the guillotine ; the 
 splendours of Louis' Court had been replaced by 
 Napoleon's bourgeois retinue. It was a strangely 
 changed Paris to which Hel^ne returned after 
 thirty years of absence ; but she was still beautiful, 
 and at her Paris house and country chateau she 
 held a Court far more brilliant than that over 
 which the First Consul's wife presided. 
 
 Here at last she took once more to her arms and 
 heart her daughter Sidonie, now grown to lovely 
 young womanhood ; but not until she came as 
 bride of Francois Potocki, son of her husband and 
 his discarded wife, the Countess Anna — a union 
 which, combining as it did the fortunes of the two 
 houses, de Ligne and Potocki, had been a long- 
 cherished project. The meeting of mother and 
 daughter, so long separated, was infinitely touching. 
 When at last the bridal carriage drove up, Helene's 
 suspense was so great that she was at the door before 
 they could alight. A single glance assured her 
 that she need fear no reproach from her daughter. 
 " Oh, my child, my only child," she cried, in a voice 
 shaken with sobs, as she clasped her in her arms, 
 " you are all that I love most in the world " — 
 adding, in a sudden fit of hysterical gaiety, " after 
 my husband, hien entendu." 
 
 Once more Helene's cup of happiness was full — 
 
264 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 rich and admired, living at last in Paris, the object 
 of her dreams, with the husband she worshipped, 
 and assured of the affection and devotion of her 
 children. But Fate never permitted the Countess 
 to be happy long. One day in 1815 the end came 
 with tragic suddenness. She was seized with 
 terrible internal pains, and a few hours later she 
 died in her daughter's arms, after writing a letter, 
 full of affection, to her husband, absent in Poland. 
 
CHAPTER XX 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 
 
 It was scarcely possible that the child of Catherine 
 II. of Russia, " High Priestess of Pleasure," and 
 her husband, Peter III., " drunkard and imbecile," 
 as his own son called him, could be normal ; and 
 there can be little doubt that Tsar Paul was cradled 
 with the taint of insanity in his veins, the insanity 
 which, after he had come to his crown, was to take 
 such violent forms, and to close his brief and 
 turbulent reign in tragedy. 
 
 The germs of madness were, however, long in 
 developing ; and in his youth and early manhood 
 at least, Paul was as normal and sane as any prince 
 in Europe, with quite a liberal endowment of 
 amiable qualities. Physically he was dwarfish and 
 ugly ; but, although from childhood he was a prey 
 to nerves, a hasty temper, and a stubborn auto- 
 cratic will, he was amiable and generous almost to 
 a fault. Those who knew him in these early years 
 found him both intelUgent and charming. " It is 
 impossible," says Asseburg, a foreign diplomatist, 
 " to combine more brightness of intellect, more 
 sweetness and charm, than he exhibits." 
 
 One of his tutors, however, more discerningly 
 263 
 
266 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 describes Paul in these prophetic words, " He has 
 intelligence ; but the mechanism of his head is only 
 held together by a thread. If the thread should 
 happen to break, the mechanism will aU be out of 
 gear, and then, good-bye to reason and good sense." 
 How, within a score of years, the thread did break, 
 and with what terrible consequences, the world 
 knows. 
 
 But at the time Paul wooed and married his 
 second bride he was a goodly young man, with 
 power to charm one of the fairest princesses in 
 Europe, and to inspire a love which she retained 
 almost to his last day. He had been married as 
 a boy of nineteen to a daughter of the Landgraf 
 of Hesse-Darmstadt, with whom, as Catherine his 
 mother says, he "fell in love as soon as he saw her"; 
 but after a very brief wedded life his Grand Duchess 
 had died in childbirth, leaving him a widower 
 almost before he had reached man's estate. 
 
 For a time he was disconsolate, although he had 
 good reason to know that his dead wife had been 
 more than kind to his best friend, Andr6 Razou- 
 movsky, until Catherine bestirred herself to find a 
 second princess for her son. It is true the Empress 
 had always hated Paul, who was more than sus- 
 pected of being the son, not of Catherine's husband, 
 Peter III., but of her lover Soltykoff. From his 
 cradle she showed a marked aversion to him ; she 
 would rarely allow him to come into her presence ; 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 267 
 
 and on the few occasions when she must see him, 
 treated him with such coldness that he soon learnt 
 to fear, and then to hate her in turn. 
 
 But it was necessary for the stability of her 
 throne that Paul should provide an heir to it ; and 
 thus it was that she wrote to Grimm : " Seeing the 
 vessel go down on one side, I made haste to throw 
 it over on the other. I lost no time in setting to 
 work to repair the loss, and so succeeded in dis- 
 sipating the gloom into which our trouble had 
 plunged us." In other words, having lost one 
 wife, she determined that her son should not long 
 lack a successor ; and, sending her emissaries 
 on a tour of exploration through the courts of 
 Europe, she had no difficulty in finding the 
 "Princess Charming" in Dorothea of Wiirtemberg- 
 Montbehard, grand-niece of the Great Frederick 
 himself^ a princess then in the first bloom of her 
 loveliness. 
 
 " The Princess Dorothea," Madame Oberkirch 
 wrote, " was then seventeen years of age. She was 
 beautiful as Aurora ; of that majestic stature which 
 sculptors love to emulate, combining with a delicate 
 regularity of features the most noble and imposing 
 grace. Hers was, indeed, a regal beauty." And 
 that the description is by no means exaggerated 
 the portraits of the future Empress of Russia show ; 
 for they reveal a girl of surpassing beauty of face 
 and figure, full of a queenly dignity and gracious- 
 
268 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 ness. And to these physical perfections were allied 
 equally rare qualities of head and heart. 
 
 To Catherine's fastidious eyes she appeared 
 perfectly charming. " I have grown passionately 
 fond of this delightful creature," she wrote, a few 
 weeks after first seeing her. " She is just what I 
 had hoped she would be. She has the figure of a 
 nymph, and a complexion of lilies and roses. Her 
 skin is transparent ; she is well-proportioned, and 
 walks with grace and elegance. She has an ex- 
 cellent heart, and is gentle and equable in temper ; 
 and her face is expressive of all the beautiful 
 quahties of the soul. She wins everybody's love, 
 for she is worthy of universal affection," 
 
 As for Paul, he was completely undone at first 
 sight, in Berhn, of the radiant young girl who was 
 to be his bride. He found her, as, in a studiously 
 restrained letter, he told his mother, " pretty, tall 
 and graceful," " good and sensible at heart," 
 " highly educated and yet simple in her habits, 
 and domestically inclined." And he was all im- 
 patience for the day when she should be "all his 
 own." Paul's enthusiasm for his bride-to-be was 
 more than reciprocated by his beautiful princess, 
 who, soon after her betrothal, wrote to him, " I 
 cannot go to bed, my dear and adorable Prince, 
 before telling you once more that I love and adore 
 you to distraction. God alone knows what pleasure 
 it will be to me soon to belong to you entirely. 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 269 
 
 All my future life will prove to you my sentiments ; 
 yes, dear, adorable, dearest Prince, all my life will 
 I devote to you, and give you constant proofs of 
 my attachment, and of the love with which my 
 heart is beating for you. Good-night, adorable 
 Prince ; sleep well, banish all phantoms, but 
 dream of one that adores you." 
 
 Surely never has marriage held greater promise 
 of happiness than this which, one October day in 
 1776, united the future Tsar of Russia to his girl- 
 bride from Wiirtemberg, who was to be known 
 hereafter as " Maria Feodorovna " ; and that it 
 failed was no fault of the Princess, who fulfilled to 
 the letter her promise to dedicate " all her future 
 life " to her husband. The cause of the unhappi- 
 ness that followed is to be found in Paul's growing 
 insanity, which culminated when, twenty years 
 later, he came to his throne. 
 
 Their early years of wedded life at least were 
 happy. For this we have the words of the Grand 
 Duchess, who, after they had been married a year, 
 wrote to a friend : " The Grand Duke is the most 
 adorable of husbands. I am very glad that you 
 do not know him, for you would certainly have 
 fallen in love with him, and then I should have 
 been jealous. My dear husband is an angel, and 
 I love him to distraction." Even our ambassador 
 at the Russian Court was able to pay this tribute : 
 " They are as happy as can be ; but I tremble for 
 
270 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the duration of this happiness in the midst of such 
 a corrupt and ill-assorted Court." Maria Feodo- 
 rovna's happiness was complete when, shortly 
 before the birth of her first son, she wrote to her 
 husband, " My soul is full of joy, of happiness, and 
 of satisfaction. . . . Live happy and contented, 
 live a thousand years to do good to millions of 
 subjects. Such is the wish of your tender and 
 faithful friend and wife. I adore you, I love 
 you to distraction. You are my Idol, my Supreme 
 good ; and I cherish you beyond words." 
 
 Thus ideally passed the first few years of wedded 
 life for the royal couple, " bound to each other," 
 to quote Catherine's own words, " by the ties of 
 mutual affection and understanding, she loving and 
 ruhng him " ; and so it might have been to the end 
 had Paul not inherited his father's insanity, which 
 was now beginning to manifest itself. 
 
 Still held at arm's-length by his mother, and 
 shut out from all participation in affairs of State, 
 even from the duties of his rank, his inactivity 
 filled him with ennui, and his hatred of the Empress 
 became a morbid obsession. ' ' My brow is wet with 
 sweat — ^not from fatigue but boredom," he wrote 
 pathetically to Platon in 1781, from the rustic 
 retirement of Gatshina to which his mother had 
 banished him. Even his tour of Europe, which 
 began in the following autumn, did little to dissipate 
 the gloom which was more and more enveloping his 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 271 
 
 ill-balanced brain. He became a prey to delusions ; 
 imagined that the whole world was in a conspiracy 
 to slight and thwart him ; and he began to see 
 visions — ^as on that memorable occasion when, 
 walking with a friend at night in the streets of 
 St Petersburg, he declared that the wraith of his 
 grandfather, Peter the Great, was keeping pace 
 with him, speaking to him, and transfixing him 
 with " a pair of glittering eyes." 
 
 His temper, never of the best, began to exhibit 
 itself in outbursts of rage and violence ; and when 
 he was not brooding in solitude over his fancied 
 wrongs, or lashing himself into fits of fury, he made 
 himself ridiculous by his mania for military display. 
 And through all these stages of incipient madness 
 Maria Feodorovna remained the devoted wife, 
 allaying his suspicions, soothing his rages, and in 
 every possible way trying to brighten life for him. 
 It was at this time that Catherine, who was ever her 
 son's worst enemy, tried to sow discord between 
 him and his wife by throwing him more and more 
 into the company of Mademoiselle Nelidov, who 
 alone among the ladies of her Court seemed to 
 attract him. 
 
 Mademoiselle Nelidov, who was fated to play an 
 important part in the Grand Duke's life, was bom in 
 1758, the daughter of a fairly substantial landowner 
 in Smolensk. As a young girl she was sent for her 
 education to a convent school at Smolna for the 
 
272 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 daughters of noblemen, and while there attracted 
 the notice of the Empress, who, when her schooldays 
 were over, sent her as maid-of -honour to the Grand 
 Duchess Natalia Alexievna, Paul's first wife, thus 
 transporting the rustic maiden to the glamour and 
 dangers of the Court. 
 
 Not that the landowner's daughter seemed in 
 any great danger of corruption, for she had small 
 beauty to draw the eyes of gallants. Her hair and 
 complexion, we are told, were dark ; she was slender 
 and graceful, with bright intelligent eyes ; but 
 her face, although full of expression, was plain. 
 She was, however, a dancer of incomparable grace ; 
 she could sing sweetly ; she was extremely witty, 
 and a clever conversationalist, and thus had more 
 power to charm than many women of greater 
 physical attractions. Such was Mademoiselle 
 Nelidov, who, after the Grand Duchess Nataha's 
 death, became one of the ladies of her successor, 
 Maria Feodorovna. 
 
 Fresh from her convent seclusion, a stranger to 
 the glamour and gallantries of a Court, it was per- 
 haps as inevitable that Mademoiselle Nelidov should 
 be attracted by the courtliness and charm of the 
 Grand Duke, as that her heart should go out in 
 sympathy to a prince so unfortunate, shut out from 
 all the privileges of his position, and a prey to 
 morbid fancies ; and it was equally inevitable that 
 Paul should be drawn to a woman who gave such 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 273 
 
 proofs that she understood and sympathised with 
 him, and who had such a power to charm away his 
 gloomy moods. 
 
 So marked became the attraction of one for the 
 other that it soon began to be whispered in Court 
 that the maid-of-honour was the mistress of the 
 Grand Duke. What other construction could 
 jealousy put on their frequent meetings, their long 
 conversations, and the pleasure each so evidently 
 took in the other's company ? But there were 
 others, more charitable, who saw nothing in the 
 connection but a harmless friendship. " The 
 natural amiability and chivalry of his manner," 
 says Shumigovsky, " lent an air of intrigue to his 
 relations with the maid-of-honour ; but the plain- 
 ness of the girl prevented any idea of there being 
 any serious connection between them." And 
 among those who, at this time, took this generous 
 view was the Grand Duchess herself, who looked 
 amiably on while her husband paid attentions to 
 her maid-of-honour. 
 
 As for Mademoiselle Nelidov, she cared little what 
 scandalous tongues might say. She was perfectly 
 happy in the understanding that existed between 
 the Grand Duke and herself, in her power to comfort 
 and to guide him. He called her his " guardian 
 angel," the only person in Russia who really under- 
 stood him, and in whom he could confide ; and to 
 her he was " her little Paul " to whose weakness 
 
274 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 she supplied strength, and into whose Ufe she 
 brought brightness and hope. If there was love 
 between them it was purely platonic. 
 
 It was inevitable, however, that sooner or later 
 the Grand Duchess should feel the pangs of jealousy. 
 In one such mood she complained to the Empress, 
 who, for answer, led her daughter-in-law to a 
 mirror. " There ! " she said, " see how beautiful 
 you are. Your rival is an ugly little thing ; leave 
 off fretting, and be assured of your charms." 
 
 If any doubt could exist of the purity of this 
 relationship it was surely removed once for all by 
 a letter written by Paul to his mother in 1790, 
 when illness had brought him to the verge of death. 
 " In this solemn moment of my life," he wrote, " I 
 have to fixlfil a duty towards my God and my con- 
 science. I have noticed how much human malevo- 
 lence has been busy misinterpreting the spiritual 
 bond which unites me to Mademoiselle Nelidov. 
 I swear before the divine Tribunal, from which 
 none of us can escape, that both of us can appear 
 before it without any reproach. Why could I not 
 seal my oath with my blood ? But, in bidding 
 good-bye to life, I solemnly declare that our con- 
 nection has been pure, and holy, and without 
 blemish." 
 
 Two years later, in 1792, Mademoiselle, weary of 
 the vanities of Court hfe, and of the continued 
 scandal which assailed her fair name, retired to the 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A MAD EMPEROR 275 
 
 convent of Smolna, but in answer to Paul's plead- 
 ing, in which his wife, now satisfied of her perfect 
 innocence, joined, she returned again. Paul's in- 
 sanity had made rapid strides during her absence, 
 and the Grand Duchess was glad to have the help of 
 the woman who had such a power to soothe and 
 influence him. But Paul was now beyond even her 
 reach ; in his insane moods he resented all her efforts 
 to control him, and showed such a marked aversion 
 to her that in despair she retired once more to her 
 convent, vowing in her disappointment that she 
 would never see him again. 
 
 This vow, however, was fated to be broken ; for 
 when Catherine's death placed her mad son on the 
 throne of Russia, Mademoiselle Nelidov went back 
 to St Petersburg, this time at the urgent request 
 of the new Emperor. But her day of influence was 
 ended. He was already in the toils of the beauti- 
 ful Princess Gagarina, daughter of Lapoukhin, the 
 Moscow Director of Police, who was his avowed 
 mistress. There was nothing platonic in this new 
 relationship in spite of the statement of the Swedish 
 ambassador, who " was sure that, as Paul was very 
 rehgious, there was nothing of a sensual character 
 in his liaison with Mademoiselle Lapoukhin." 
 
 For his new favourite he had a palace built on 
 the Quay de Neva, near the house in which his 
 ex-barber, Koutayssov, now a Count and Grand 
 Master of the Horse, had estabUshed his own 
 
276 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 mistress, a French actress ; and, Sablukov tells us, 
 " I have frequently seen the Emperor leave his 
 barber there, and fetch him away again on his 
 return from his own mistress." The Princess's 
 father was raised by the Tsar to princely rank ; 
 her husband had his sumptuous apartments in 
 the palace Paul had built for his wife ; and the 
 highest posts at Court and in the State were filled 
 by her relatives and friends. 
 
 Powerless in face of such rivalry as this, Made- 
 moiselle Nelidov again returned to the Smolna 
 convent, where she spent the rest of her long life 
 in seclusion and piety ; and it was at Smolna that 
 news reached her of that last terrible scene in the 
 life of her royal lover, when Paul was dragged from 
 •the chimney of his bedroom, in which he had sought 
 to escape the fury of his assailants, and was 
 strangled with his own scarf, while the Empress 
 vainly hammered at the locked door, impotent to 
 save the husband whom she loved to the last. 
 
^j/u' 0m^ 
 
 i^/jj.^ ifo^ne. 
 
 <9tU/>S. 
 
CHAPTER XXI 
 
 A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 
 
 When, one April day in 1814, the Comte de Sainte- 
 Aulaire brought to Marie Louise the news of her 
 husband's downfall, the Comte d'Haussonville 
 tells us, " She was but half awake when she 
 received him, sitting at the side of the bed with 
 her bare feet showing from beneath the coverlet. 
 
 " Completely overcome by the gravity of the 
 situation, for the letter of which he was the bearer 
 not only brought the news of the fall of the Empire, 
 but also that of Napoleon's attempted suicide at 
 Fontainebleau, Monsieur de Sainte-Aulaire stood 
 with his eyes cast down, anxious to appear uncon- 
 scious of the effect produced on the Empress by 
 this sad intelligence. ' Ah ! you are looking at 
 my feet,' she exclaimed ; ' I am always being told 
 how pretty they are.' " 
 
 In such fashion did the shallow-hearted daughter 
 of the Emperor of Austria, the grand-niece of Marie 
 Antoinette, receive the blow which had hurled 
 her bourgeois husband from the Empire of Europe, 
 regardless of the fact that, but a few weeks earlier, 
 she had written to Madame de Crenneville, " You 
 can imagine my happiness at being with my family ; 
 277 
 
278 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 nevertheless, my pleasure is clouded by sorrow at 
 being separated from the Emperor. I cannot be 
 really happy unless I am with him." 
 
 One can thus imagine that it was with no heavy 
 heart that Marie Louise bade farewell to France, 
 a few days later, and, accompanied by a brilliant 
 retinue, with an escort of Austrian soldiers, set forth 
 on her royal progress to Aix, while the husband who 
 had placed the crown of empress on her empty head 
 was making his sorrowful journey to his exile in 
 Elba. To her this leisurely escape from the ruins 
 of her past splendour was a pleasure jaunt every 
 day of which she frankly enjoyed, from the regal 
 entertainments provided for her by Prince Eugene 
 at Munich to her exploration of the beauties of the 
 Chamouny Valley, the glaciers of Bossons, and the 
 cascade of Pissevache. 
 
 Three delightful months she spent on her journey 
 before she came at last to Aix, where she was to 
 take the waters. Here she was welcomed at the 
 entrance to the town by a man who, although she 
 little suspected it, was destined to play a very 
 important part in her life, and who, as he stooped 
 in courtly fashion over her hand, gave his name 
 as Adam Albert de Neipperg. Forty years of age, 
 with the erect figure of a soldier, with fair curly hair 
 and a ruddy complexion, de Neipperg was a goodly 
 man to look on, although he had lost the freshness 
 of youth, and in spite of the black bandage which 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 279 
 
 he always wore over his right eye destroyed in 
 battle. 
 
 But a few years earlier Madame de Stael had 
 dubbed Neipperg the "German Bayard" — a tribute 
 aUke to his daring on many a field of battle, to his 
 many gifts and graces and to his chivalrous attitude 
 to women. Although his father was a Frenchman, 
 he had proved himself the bravest soldier in the 
 Austrian army, and had won his marshal's baton 
 on the field of Leipzig. He had, too, won laurels 
 as a skilful diplomatist ; he was a courtier to his 
 finger-tips and a man of many accomplishments. 
 Such was the hero of romance who had been 
 deputed by Prince Metternich to receive the ex- 
 Empress and to amuse and entertain her on her 
 arrival at Aix, with the disappointing result that, 
 we are told, " he produced a disagreeable impres- 
 sion on the mind of Marie Louise, and she made no 
 attempt to conceal it." 
 
 But Neipperg was no man to be easily chilled by 
 the cold looks of any woman. He had had too 
 many experiences of conquest ; and so assured was 
 he that he would not fail with Napoleon's wife that, 
 on leaving Milan to welcome her at Aix, he declared 
 to his mistress — ^a lady whom he had stolen from 
 her husband — " Before six months are over I shall 
 be her lover, and not long after, her husband." 
 
 At Aix the ex-Empress was by no means minded 
 to spend her time as a mournful, disconsolate grass- 
 
280 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 widow. Her exiled husband had already become 
 only a disturbing memory, revived on the rare 
 occasions when she wrote to him. Surrounded by 
 her French suite, her coachmen and footmen still 
 wearing the livery of the Tuileries, and the Imperial 
 arms displayed on the panels of the carriages 
 Napoleon had so lavishly provided for her, she was 
 once more the Austrian Princess, the splendours of 
 her life in France no more than a dream to her. 
 
 Distraction and gaiety were all she craved for, 
 and she had them in abundance. Her days at Aix 
 were crowded with pleasure. She was present at 
 every public entertainment. She gave garden- 
 parties, banquets and receptions. She went for 
 long rides every day and spent lazy hours boating 
 on the lake of Bourget. She flung aside her royal 
 dignity and mingled on terms of familiarity with all 
 classes, now coquetting with French officers, now 
 joining, often unasked, in some bourgeois dance 
 with a tradesman's arm around her waist. So 
 unseemly, in fact, became her conduct that the Due 
 de Berry reported in August to the Council of 
 Ministers that " Marie Louise was behaving at Aix 
 in the most undignified way " ; and at last her 
 father, the Emperor, was obliged to order her to 
 leave Aix, and to take care that her conduct in 
 future should be more decorous. 
 
 From Aix, she went for a tour in Switzerland with 
 Neipperg, whose mistress, it is said, she already 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 281 
 
 was, for companion and guide — so quickly had the 
 one-eyed hero justified his boast and so quickly had 
 Marie Louise succumbed to the fascinations of a 
 man who had produced such " a disagreeable 
 impression " on her but a few weeks earlier. And 
 while his wife was thus enjojdng her " honeymoon " 
 among the Swiss mountains. Napoleon in distant 
 Elba was looking forward with longing to her 
 coming, and watching the painter decorating her 
 boudoir-ceiling with two turtle-doves attached to 
 the opposite ends of a ribbon, by a knot which 
 would tighten as they flew apart — ^the two white 
 birds, symbols of innocence and love, representing 
 Marie Louise and himself ! 
 
 How could the Empress spare a thought to her 
 fallen husband under such idyllic conditions with 
 the Comte de Neipperg pouring flatteries into her 
 ears, supporting her among the perils of precipices 
 and glaciers, witching her with his guitar and his 
 love songs, and surrounding her with every delicate 
 ministration ? Alone among the glories of Grindel- 
 wald, Lauterbriinnen and the Rigi, for Marie 
 Louise had left all other escort behind, the lovers 
 spent a halcyon time before they returned to Berne. 
 Here the Empress found Caroline, Princess of Wales, 
 awaiting her return — an exile like herself, separated 
 from her husband, " the first gentleman in Europe," 
 and equally determined to " have a good time." 
 
 The story of the meeting of these two royal ladies. 
 
282 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 so strangely allied in misfortune and so indifferent 
 to it, is full of romance, from their first greeting, 
 when Caroline, gorgeous in a dress of white muslin 
 and lace, with necklace of pearls and diamond 
 diadem, introduced her " prot^g^ Austin," the silly 
 boy who was said to be her illegitimate son, to the 
 merry dinner, after which Empress and Princess 
 merged their voices in a duet from Mozart's Don 
 Juan. 
 
 From Berne Marie Louise journeyed next to 
 Schonbrunn, and we find her taking part in the 
 brilliant series of f^tes, gala performances, tourna- 
 ments and parades, with which " the allied sove- 
 reigns of Europe celebrated the fall of her husband, 
 watching without any apparent emotion the dances 
 in which such personages as Metternich, Castlereagh 
 and others of Napoleon's successful antagonists took 
 part." Her severance from her husband was now 
 complete, for she no longer took the trouble to 
 answer such of his letters, full as ever of longing 
 and appeal, as reached her. There was only one 
 man now in all the world for her. She was hope- 
 lessly in love with her one-eyed cavalier, and " no 
 longer even took the trouble to hide her strange 
 fascination for the man, to whom there is little 
 doubt she now belonged both body and soul." She 
 was ideally happy riding and driving with him — 
 excursions, during which, we are told, " they would 
 sometimes stop for a while at a farm, or rest under 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 283 
 
 a clump of trees to admire the landscape. On 
 these occasions they would refresh themselves 
 with the milk and household bread supplied by 
 some neighbouring cottage." Billiards, music and 
 painting, with Neipperg by her side, filled the 
 remainder of the days with such happiness as 
 she declared she had never known before. 
 
 Her only ambition now was to secure the Duchy 
 of Parma, and when this was granted to her, even 
 at the cost of giving up the child she had borne to 
 Napoleon, her cup of joy was full ; for she was now 
 assured of a kingdom all her own, with the beloved 
 Neipperg to share her throne. But her cup of 
 happiness was not to be without its bitterness to 
 the taste ; for scarcely had the good news come to 
 her when it was followed by the paralysing rumour 
 that Napoleon had escaped from Elba and was on 
 his way back to France. Could anything be more 
 annoying than the sudden reappearance of a tire- 
 some husband j\ist when she had practically for- 
 gotten his existence and was going to be so happy ? 
 Worse still, her lover was to be taken from her side, 
 for at N^oleon's coming all Europe sprang as one 
 man to arms to crush the ogre a second time. Such 
 a soldier as Neipperg could not be spared at such a 
 crisis, and on the ist April 1815 we find him bidding 
 Marie Louise a tearful farewell before joining the 
 Austrian army to oppose Murat's advance in Italy. 
 
 They were days of great anxiety that followed 
 
284 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 for Marie Louise, relieved, however, by the long and 
 frequent letters of her lover from the seat of war. 
 She was, too, " bored to death " during his absence, 
 and driven to all sorts of mad expedients to banish 
 her ennui and her fears for Neipperg's safety. 
 Thus we read of her going for wild gallops over the 
 roughest ground she could find, the prospect of 
 breaking her neck adding to her zest ; or entering 
 church in the middle of High Mass, decked from 
 head to foot in pink, and followed by a servant 
 carrying a huge silken bag containing a prayer-book, 
 to the disturbance of the shocked worshippers. 
 
 But the darkest night at last yields to dawn ; 
 Napoleon was once more a broken man and a 
 prisoner, and the gallant Neipperg was on his way 
 back to be crowned with fresh laurels. When the 
 Baronne de Montet ventured to carry the tragic 
 news to the Empress, all the answer she got for her 
 pains was, " Thank you ; I had already heard the 
 news. I want to ride to Merkenstein ; do you 
 think the weather is fine enough ? " Napoleon's 
 second and crowning disaster found his wife as 
 heartlessly indifferent as the first. 
 
 While her husband was journeying to his last 
 home of exile, St Helena, Marie Louise was making 
 her royal entry into Parma, with her beloved 
 Neipperg, "in a gorgeous costume embroidered 
 with gold and covered with decorations," at her 
 side, and followed by a procession of eighteen 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 285 
 
 carriages containing her chamberlains and the ladies 
 of her ducal court ; and it was to the clashing of 
 beUs from sixty church steeples, and through dense 
 avenues of cheering and jubilant subjects that she^ 
 drove from the service of solemn thanksgiving to 
 the ducal palace. 
 
 At last Marie Louise had reached the goal of her 
 ambition. Her husband might " eat his heart out " 
 in St Helena, and welcome. She was a " queen " 
 now in her own right, and, more even than this, 
 she was with the man she loved as, to quote her own 
 words, " no man was ever loved by woman before." 
 As for Neipperg, he was not only husband in all but 
 the name to the reigning Duchess, he was virtual 
 Duke of Parma, First Chamberlain, Minister of War 
 and Foreign Affairs, and Controller of the Court and 
 Palace. 
 
 In her duchy Marie Louise continued her life of 
 gaiety, with no thought of the husband whose life 
 was ebbing out in loneliness and pain on St Helena. 
 Carnivals and balls and feasts succeeded each other, 
 varied by deUghtful excursions on foot and on horse- 
 back with her adored Neipperg, while her evenings 
 were spent in playing " billiards, backgammon, 
 chess or draughts." The Duchess vowed in her 
 letters that she had never been " so happy or so 
 peaceful in her life " ; and no doubt her peace was 
 enhanced bythef act that at last she had the blessing 
 of the Church on her union with her lover, for he 
 
286 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 became her morganatic husband in the summer of 
 1820. That Napoleon was still alive and that her 
 marriage was thus invalid seems to have little 
 disturbed this lady of the easy conscience. 
 
 On the 28th April 1821, now near the end of his 
 life, Napoleon confided his last wishes to his doctor, 
 Antommarchi : " I wish you to place my heart in 
 spirits of wine, and take it to my beloved Marie 
 Louise at Parma. You will tell her that I have 
 loved her dearly, and that I have never ceased to 
 do so." " You may be quite sure," he said a little 
 later to General Bertrand, " that if the Empress 
 has made no effort to lighten my troubles it is 
 because she is surrounded by spies who prevent her 
 knowing anything of what I am made to suffer. 
 Marie Louise is virtue personified." At the very 
 time when Napoleon was thus full of undying love 
 and tender thought for his wife, believing in her 
 virtue as he believed in his Maker, the Duchy of 
 Parma was rejoicing over the birth of the second 
 child of which her morganatic husband was 
 father ! 
 
 " I confess that I am extremely shocked," the 
 Duchess wrote to her friend, " Chere Victoire," 
 when news came to her that Napoleon was dead. 
 " Although I have never had any deep feeling for 
 him, I cannot forget that he is the father of my son. 
 You will be sorry to learn that I have been so dread- 
 fully bitten in the face by gnats that I look a monster 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 287 
 
 and am glad not to be obliged to show myself." 
 The disfiguring gnat-bites were a greater tragedy 
 to her than the death of the man who had given 
 her an Imperial crown and had treasured her in 
 his heart to his last breath. 
 
 But what more could be expected of a woman of 
 whom we read, " It was the Comte de Scarampi's 
 wont to call on her every morning with his port- 
 folio ; but hardly had he opened it when the Princess 
 would call her parrot, or her small monkey, which 
 would perch on her shoulders ; and she never 
 ceased talking to it, or playing with one or other of 
 these pets during the whole of the interview ? " 
 
 Thus, in the frivolous pursuit of pleasure, passed 
 a dozen years of quasi-married life, for although 
 Marie Louise was a free woman, Neipperg's wife 
 was still alive. His passion for his empty-headed 
 Princess had long burnt itself to ashes. He was, 
 we are told, " bored to death " with her follies and 
 her shallowness, and spent his days fuming and 
 fretting at the wasted years. In July 1828 his 
 health began to fail, and after a painful illness 
 he died on the morning of 22nd February 1829, 
 leaving but a few louis out of the millions that had 
 passed through his hands, as an inheritance for his 
 children. Marie Louise was disconsolate at the loss 
 of " the best husband, the most faithful friend, and 
 all her worldly happiness . ' ' She gave him a funeral 
 of regal splendour, and raised over his tomb a 
 
288 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 monument in. Carrara marble, at a cost of one 
 hundred and twenty thousand francs. 
 
 That her grief was both sincere and deep there can 
 be no question, for to Neipperg she had given all the 
 love of which she was capable. For a time she shut 
 herself up in her palace, clothed in the deepest 
 mourning, declaring that " her home and her 
 happiness had been completely destroyed;" and 
 that she had nothing left to live for ; and for some 
 years the tears would start to her eyes at the men- 
 tion of his name. But Marie Louise could not live 
 without the love and companionship of man ; and 
 in 1833 we find her proposing marriage to her new 
 Imperial Commissioner, Bombelles, who, although 
 he "received the proposal with bewilderment," 
 yielded to her wishes, and assumed the role of 
 her third husband. 
 
 The Comte de Bombelles, however, was no 
 Neipperg in the arts of love. Marie Louise soon 
 wearied of his coldness, and before long we find her 
 infatuated by the black-whiskered, swarthy tenor, 
 Jules Lecomte, a man, we are told, with a good 
 figure, charming manners and a distinguished 
 appearance. No sooner had she set eyes on the 
 handsome young singer than she sent for him to 
 Court, and made him sing to her alone, " a slavery 
 which was both pleasant and exacting, for the 
 blood of Lucrezia Borgia flowed in Marie Louise's 
 veins." 
 
A TRAITRESS TO LOVE 289 
 
 " I am Napoleon's successor," Lecomte wrote a 
 few days later to his friend Souverain. " It is not 
 known at the Tuileries ; but I know it here, at 
 Parma. I sang to Marie Louise, and she kept me 
 to supper, which lasted all night. When I awoke 
 in the morning I fancied myself the Emperor." 
 " Marie Louise did not love Napoleon," says Arsene 
 Houssaye, " but she adores Jules Lecomte. . . . 
 The following would be a suitable inscription for 
 her tomb: "Here lies one who commenced with 
 an Emperor and ended with a tenor." 
 
CHAPTER XXII 
 
 A PRINCESS OF MONACO 
 
 "It is thus that everything changes, everything 
 passes ; and when one thinks it all over, it is not 
 worth while being bom." Such are the cynical 
 words of disillusionment which appear more than 
 once in the Memoirs of Charlotte, Princess of 
 Monaco, whose brief Hfe strikingly illustrates the 
 vanity of beauty, riches and rank. Fortune was 
 prodigal to her in her favours, but there was no 
 gift which she did not prostitute, no " talent " 
 which she did not squander. 
 
 When Louis I. of Monaco, the prince whom 
 Charlotte de Gramont was destined to wed, was 
 cradled, one day in the year 1642, he was born to 
 a goodly heritage ; for his grandfather, Honore 
 Grimaldi, the reigning prince, was basking in the 
 sunshine of Louis XIII. 's special favour. Louis 
 had just conferred on him the Duchy of Valentinois, 
 the Comte of Saint Remy, and a seigneurie in 
 Provence. He had made Honore's son, Hercules, 
 Marquis de Baux ; and had offered to stand 
 sponsor to his infant son. 
 
 Thus, with the King of France as protector and 
 dispenser of new dignities, the little principaUty of 
 
 290 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 291 
 
 Monaco, which would one day be the infant's 
 heritage, was able to false its head in pride, and 
 to look forward to a new era of prosperity. Nor 
 was Fate long in preparing the child's way to his 
 kingdom. Before he had well begun his schooling, 
 his father, the next heir to the princeship, was 
 removed by a tragedy. One day when Hercules, 
 Marquis de Baux, was practising shooting at 
 Mentone, he W£is shot in the spine by the accidental 
 discharge of the harquebus of a soldier against 
 whom he was pitting his skiU, and died the 
 following day in agony. 
 
 A few days before this tragic happening, so the 
 story goes, the Marquis was reading alone in his 
 library when suddenly he saw a figure standing by 
 his side. " What are you reading ? " asked the 
 strange visitant ; and when the Marquis answered, 
 the phantom continued, " Read and learn ; for 
 you will very soon have no need of either " — with 
 which words it disappeared, "leaving him for 
 a long while filled with terror and perplexity." 
 Under such circumstances of awe and tragedy died 
 Hercules Grimaldi, leaving the way clear to his 
 son's succession to the " throne " of Monaco on 
 the death of his grandfather, the reigning Prince. 
 
 As Louis, now Due de Valentinois, grew up to 
 young manhood, he was no comely youth to win 
 any maid's favour. He is described as fat and 
 short, " with eyes like a white rabbit's, a trumpet 
 
292 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 nose and blubber lips." He had hands like a 
 butcher, the straddling gait of a chair-porter, and 
 a red face " which became as livid as a cock's comb 
 on the least provocation." And to this repulsive 
 exterior were allied a violent temper, ridiculous airs 
 of arrogance, coarse appetites and a head as empty 
 as it was vain. " The bear of the Alps," Louis 
 was dubbed, and the description seems to have 
 erred, if at all, on the side of flattery. 
 
 Such was the caricature of a prince who, while 
 still in his teens, made clumsy love to Charlotte 
 de Gramont, one of the most beautiful and most 
 imperious young ladies in Europe. The daughter 
 of Antoine de Gramont, twofold prince, duke and 
 Marshal of France, accomphshed courtier and vou6, 
 Charlotte inherited all her father's good looks and 
 all his arrogance. Her mother was Marguerite 
 Duplessis de Chivre, niece of Richelieu, a woman 
 notorious for her lack of the moral sense in an 
 age notorious for its moral laxity, and of whom 
 her own husband declared that " she could give 
 Beelzebub himself fifteen points and a bisque." 
 
 True child of such parents, Charlotte was no girl 
 to submit tamely to any marriage fetters, however 
 gilded, especially as she was so supremely equipped 
 for conquest. That she was singularly beautiful 
 we know without any evidence of her own ; 
 although she has herself supplied a catalogue of her 
 charms which does no more than justice to them. 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 293 
 
 She dwells lovingly on the grace and exquisite 
 modelhng of her figure ; " her throat and shoulders 
 consummately turned " ; the glory of her ash- 
 coloured hair ; her black eyes, " sweet and spark- 
 ling " ; her brilliant complexion, dazzling teeth 
 and crimson lips. " There is," she says, " some- 
 thing very captivating in my smile when I don't 
 frown — ^for when I do I am terrifying." And that 
 she could frown, and frighten by her frowning, we 
 have abundant evidence. 
 
 It was Cardinal Mazarin who first suggested to 
 Antoine de Gramont how desirable a thing it would 
 be to secure the heir to Monaco for his son-in-law ; 
 and who arranged their first meeting at Caderousse. 
 To Charlotte no prospect could have been more 
 unwelcome, even if the husband proposed for her 
 had been as well favoured as he was repulsive ; for 
 her heart had already been given to the Due de 
 Lauzun, by common consent the most handsome 
 and fascinating gallant in France, with a more 
 brilliant record of conquests than any other. " So 
 intoxicating is his personal charm," we are told, 
 " that, in one hour, he can make up to you for an 
 age of torture." No man less insufferably vain 
 than Louis of Monaco would have dared to enter 
 the lists of love against such a rival as de Lauzun, 
 even if he had had Lauzun 's physical attractions 
 to support his suit. 
 
 One would like to have been present at this first 
 
294 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 meeting between the " Beauty " kid the " Beast," 
 as they were described by one who witnessed it ; 
 and to see the look of scorn and disgust that must 
 have flamed from Charlotte's dark eyes, which could 
 be so " sweet and sparkling " to the incomparable 
 Lauzun. " I could have shrieked," Charlotte 
 declares, " when first I saw the horror who dared 
 to come into my presence as a lover — ^from his 
 purple face and flabby lips to his uncouth bow 
 and thick, clumsy words of flattery." The Due de 
 Lauzun was present at the meeting ; and one can 
 imagine the looks that flashed from his eyes to hers. 
 It was not, however, until she had returned to 
 Bisache that the full horror of it all dawned on her. 
 Then, when she realised what it meant to her, she 
 says, " I uttered a cry of terror ; and afterwards 
 laughed until I cried." 
 
 There were, indeed, many days of weeping that 
 followed this first revelation of the fate that awaited 
 her. She vowed she would rather die than be 
 wedded to such an ogre ; and when appeals to her 
 mother failed to soften her heart she flew to the 
 arms of her lover and begged him with tears 
 to save her from so terrible a fate. Here at last 
 she found consolation and a hope of escape. De 
 Lauzun swore that she should be no man's wife but 
 his. " Give yourself to me," he said, " and then 
 you will no longer belong to yourself," and 
 listening to the soothing and seductions of the 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 295 
 
 voice that had won so many hearts, she gladly 
 consented. 
 
 " To-morrow night " it was planned that her 
 lover should come and carry her away to happiness 
 with him ; and as pledge of his promise he " tossed 
 in at her window a nosegay wet with morning dew, 
 and, hidden in its leaves, a letter embalmed in 
 flowers of love." But much was to happen before 
 the morrow dawned. Her father, who had been 
 absent, returned home on that day ; and to him, 
 who had always loved and humoured her, she 
 made a last confident appeal to save her. 
 
 But here again, where she had hoped most, she 
 met with a rebuff. " I can well understand," 
 Antoine de Gramont said to his daughter, " that 
 you cannot love this man. Do you take me for a 
 t57rant ? I don't force you to care for him. He's a 
 fool, I know ; a barrel, I see ; a hound, I think. 
 But you must marry him all the same. Become 
 Princess of Monaco ; and after that let him be 
 anything that heaven pleases. I sha'n't care." In 
 vain she pleaded that she belonged to another, and 
 that she would rather die than marry the Prince. 
 He laughed at her fears, and declined to discuss 
 the matter any further. 
 
 To de Lauzun, professing ignorance that he was 
 his daughter's lover, De Gramont confided that 
 anyone who married Charlotte, in defiance of his 
 wishes, would make a very bad bargain ; for he 
 
296 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 would " have nothing but the girl — ^no money, no 
 influence at Court, no favour " — a prospect which 
 by no means appealed to that most self-seeking of 
 lovers. A few hours later de Lauzun was telling 
 Charlotte, with mock tears in his eyes, that he must 
 renounce his hope of making her happy, and that 
 she must marry the " Bear." For his own sake he 
 would have dared anything ; but for hers he must 
 make this great sacrifice ! 
 
 "It is impossible for anyone to be blinder 
 and siUier than I was," Charlotte writes in her 
 Memoirs. " I beUeved in his tenderness, in his 
 sacrifice. I promised to do what he asked — and 
 from that day I had done with honour ; for had I 
 not resolved to give my hand to a man I hated, 
 while I swore to another that I would love him 
 evermore ? It was my father's fault. Ah, but he 
 is cruel when he laughs — ^he is a fiend ! " 
 
 Never was a more unwilling and unhappy bride 
 led to the altar than Charlotte de Gramont when, 
 one January day in 1660, her ugly prince placed 
 the wedding ring on her finger. Gorgeously 
 arrayed in silver brocade and priceless lace 
 a-shimmer with pearls, a princess's crown on her 
 head, " there was nothing lacking," she says, 
 " except colour in my face." In grotesque contrast 
 to the spectral bride, her black eyes burning in 
 her white face, was the smirking, self-satisfied 
 groom, " whose smile seemed to epitomise all 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 297 
 
 the idiotic things he had ever said and had still 
 to say." 
 
 It was indeed a manage pour rire — or to weep 
 over, according to the mood in which one regards it. 
 Indeed, one cannot resist laughter at the picture 
 of the Prince progressing to his bridal chamber 
 crowned with his bell-nightcap, and followed by a 
 valet and two pages bearing rehcs, images, lozenges, 
 chaplets and bottles of holy water, all of which 
 must be placed on a table by his bedside, on which 
 two wax candles are burning. 
 
 Can we wonder that before dawn came the bride 
 fled from the room and her stertorous companion, 
 to fling herself weeping on the bed of her faithful 
 maid and to forget for a while her misery in sleep. 
 When, at last, she returned to her husband it was 
 to be greeted with a curtain lecture on her duties, 
 and the honour he had bestowed on her. " Cor- 
 bleu ! " he said, as he rubbed his " rabbit's eyes," 
 and stared at her, " Madame, so now you're my 
 wife ; and make no mistake — ^it's a great honour 
 for you. I warn you not to follow in the steps of 
 your grandmothers and aunts, who are all good- 
 for-nothings, or you will find it a very bad look- 
 out, I can tell you." 
 
 Whereupon the Princess's pent-up anger blazed 
 forth at last, and in scathing words she let the 
 " Bear " know that it was not she but he who was 
 honoured by their odious union ; that she was 
 
298 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 every whit as good as himself ; and that, more- 
 over, she was Princess of Monaco, and demanded 
 to be treated as such. The Prince shrivelled up 
 before the lava of white-hot words, and said no 
 more ; and " from that moment," the Princess 
 tells us, " dated the whole course of our common 
 life. . . . Was there ever such a sheep ? I can 
 never think of him, even now, without shame and 
 fury ! " 
 
 On one point she was resolute. She would not 
 accompany her hateful husband to Monaco ; she 
 would go to Paris and seek all the distraction that 
 was to be found at Louis' Court ; and in this resolve 
 she had her father's support. Thus we find 
 Charlotte, fresh from her " horrible honeymoon," 
 welcomed with open arms at Versailles and the 
 Tuileries. Monsieur succumbed at once to her 
 beauty, and made open love to her ; Madame, his 
 wife, appointed her " Superintendent of her House- 
 hold " ; and with the boy-king, Louis XIV., 
 singling her out for special favour, and de Lauzun 
 to console her, she quickly forgot, in the whirl of 
 gaiety and triumphs, the nightmare through which 
 she had just passed. 
 
 But such halcyon days were not long to be hers. 
 She found, to her dismay, that she was to become 
 a mother, and it was imperative that the heir to 
 the Grimaldis should be born in their principality. 
 Thus, after much weeping and rebellion, she 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 299 
 
 suffered herself to be taken to Monaco, where 
 at least she found some compensation' for her 
 husband's odious society in the natural beauties 
 which were everjrwhere around her, and in the 
 humorous contrast between the Prince's regal airs 
 and the ludicrous little kingdom over which he 
 ruled. " A prince's toy," she calls it, with laughter 
 in her pen. " There are three ships which they 
 call a fleet ; four guards whom they caU an army ; 
 ten courtiers whom they call a court." 
 
 With the birth of her baby came another change 
 in Charlotte's Ufe ; for before the little Antoine 
 was christened (she insisted on calUng him 
 " Antoine " after her father, refusing to give him 
 a Grimaldi name) Honore, the reigning Prince of 
 Monaco, and her husband's grandfather, fell ill, 
 and died in her arms. " I was just beginning to 
 love him," she says, " when God took him away " ; 
 and, indeed, he seemed to be a prince worthy of 
 love, for his " death was a personal grief to every 
 one of his subjects." Louis had at last come to 
 his kingdom ; Charlotte was now Princess of 
 Monaco ; and her baby boy was now Due de 
 Valentinois. Through the festivities that followed 
 her husband's accession she bore herself worthily 
 as a princess, although she confesses that they 
 " bored her horribly." She had, however, com- 
 pensation in the attentions of a new lover, 
 M. Biaritz, a man who boasted that his pedigree 
 
300 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 was as old as the P5n:enees, and who is said to have 
 been " Byronically beautiful." 
 
 But all the time, through all the dreary profusion 
 of festivities and ceremonies, she was " dying to 
 be back in her beloved Paris," where Louis XIV. 's 
 smiles, Monsieur's flatteries and de Lauzun's 
 love awaited her ; and when Hortense Mancini, 
 Mazarin's beautiful niece and the Due de 
 Mazarin's runaway wife, came to Monaco, and 
 began to flirt outrageously with Louis, she found 
 ample excuse, and quickly shook the dust of Monaco 
 off her feet. 
 
 Back in Paris, she was able once more to forget 
 her brutish husband and his absurd principality. 
 As for the Prince, he was happily far too well 
 occupied to trouble her with his company, for 
 wherever the Mazarin duchess went he was her 
 shadow, from Rome to London. Thus Charlotte 
 was free to seek her own pleasures ; and at the 
 French Court, to a lady so dowered with charms, 
 there was no lack of choice. It was not only 
 Monsieur now and de Lauzun who were her lovers ; 
 the King himself, growing weary of La Valliere's 
 placid beauty, began to cast covetous eyes on 
 the Lady of Monaco. 
 
 De Lauzun, however, was not the man to submit 
 tamely to being supplanted, even by a king. He 
 was fiercely jealous, and showed it in a hundred 
 ways. Once, we are told, his fury was so great 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 301 
 
 that "he , . . trampled on the Princess's hand 
 with his high-heeled shoe." On another occasion, 
 when he found her apartment empty and learned 
 that she was with Louis, he " dashed his fist through 
 a mirror and departed, leaving the splintered glass 
 as sole token of his visit." But his sweetest 
 revenge was to follow. One day, learning that the 
 King was awaiting the Princess, he hid himself " in 
 a little room opposite the royal door," and, noticing 
 that the key was on the outside of the door, 
 stealthily turned it, locking his Majesty in, and 
 put it in his pocket. 
 
 When, a few minutes later, Charlotte, escorted by 
 Bontemps, Louis' valet, appeared on the scene, he 
 had the satisfaction of hearing her vainly knock 
 for admittance, while the King stormed and raged 
 from inside the room. Of course, the key could 
 not be discovered — ^it was safe in the chuckling 
 de Lauzun's pocket — and the Princess was at last 
 obliged to retrace her steps, leaving Louis to his 
 impotent anger in his locked chamber. So furious 
 and full of resentment was the King that, it is said, 
 he never smiled on the Princess of Monaco again ; 
 and the jubilant de Lauzun was left in possession 
 of the field. 
 
 While the Princess was enjoying herself in Paris 
 — ^the story of her indiscretions is told at length by 
 Dumas in half-a-dozen volumes, and in many a 
 scandalous pamphlet of the time — her husband was 
 
302 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 finding his pleasure in London in the company of 
 the Duchesse de Mazarin, who in some mysterious 
 way (for again it was the wooing of Beauty by the 
 Beast) seems to have been infatuated with him. 
 Indeed, so formidable was his rivalry that Charles 
 II. abandoned the contest and withdrew the lady's 
 pension of four thousand pounds, which the Prince 
 of Monaco undertook to pay in his stead. But 
 the Prince's tenure was short-lived ; for Hortense 
 Mancini, never long loyal to any lover, gave him 
 his cong6 in turn, and he returned an angry and 
 disappointed man to the wife who hoped she had 
 seen the last of him. 
 
 Another dreary sojourn on the Monaco rock 
 followed, during which the Prince proved himself a 
 more impossible husband than ever — " his jealousy 
 mounting like a pyramid." And once more she 
 escaped to Paris and more congenial company. 
 How she amused herself we may gather from the 
 fact that her husband found a grim satisfaction in 
 hanging her many lovers in effigy all over his small 
 principality. " More than half the men here in 
 Court," Charlotte records, " are decorating the 
 highways of Monaco." 
 
 But Madame's reign of pleasure was now nearing 
 its close. She knew that her life was not to be a 
 long one ; for had not an astrologer declared, 
 long years before, that she would die young and 
 tragically ? And it was at the very zenith of her 
 
A PRINCESS OF MONACO 303 
 
 gaieties and triumph that the end came. In 1678 
 she was struck down with smallpox; and after a 
 brief illness drew her last breath. As she lay 
 dying she called for a mirror ; and as she gazed at 
 her once beautiful face, now swollen and disfigured 
 beyond recognition, she sighed again, "It is thus 
 that everything changes, everything passes ; and 
 when one thinks it all over, it is not worth while 
 being bom." 
 
CHAPTER XXIII 
 
 A prince's folly 
 
 Among George III.'s roUicking, hard-swearing, 
 fast -living sons, from George, Prince of Wales, the 
 " First Gentleman " and also the most heartless roue 
 in Europe, to Augustus, Duke of Sussex, not one 
 had a better heart or a more foolish head than 
 Frederick, Duke of York, " the blundering general, 
 the beloved Commander-in-Chief of the Army, the 
 brother with whom," to quote Thackeray, " George 
 IV. had had many a midnight carouse, and who 
 continued his habits of pleasure almost till death 
 seized his fat body." 
 
 It was this duke whom Puckler Muskan de- 
 scribes in his Letters as such a powerful toper 
 that " six bottles of claret after dinner scarce 
 made a perceptible change in his countenance." 
 
 Like his royal brothers, Frederick's prowess with 
 the wine bottle was at least matched by his passion 
 for women, and he was even more indiscriminate in 
 his choice of the ladies to whom he paid homage ; 
 for while the Duke of Sussex was worshipping at 
 the shrine of the lovely Lady Augusta Murray, and 
 his brother of Cumberland was at the feet of his 
 " dear Uttle Angel," my Lady Grosvenor, Frederick 
 
 304 
 
A PRINCE'S FOLLY 305 
 
 was helpless in the toils of Mistress Mary Anne 
 Clarke, who had a working mason for lawful spouse ; 
 and was writing to her such impassioned letters 
 as this : "Do me justice, and be convinced that 
 there never was a woman so adored as you are. 
 Every day, every hour convinces me more and more 
 that my whole happiness depends upon you alone. 
 What a time it appears since we parted ; and with 
 what impatience do I look forward to the day after 
 to-morrow ! There are still two whole days before 
 I shall clasp my darhng in my arms." 
 
 Who was this woman who, without beauty — ^for 
 she had little to attract men beyond a pair of dark 
 eyes and a dairymaid buxomness — so enslaved the 
 son of a king that for her sake he faced dishonour ? 
 There are some who say that she had for grandfather 
 none other than Theodore I., Bang of Corsica, the 
 monarch who spent the last months of his life in a 
 London gaol, a prisoner for debt ; and who, a few 
 days after recovering his Uberty, died at the house 
 of a Soho tailor without a sixpence to contribute to 
 his funeral expenses. 
 
 But a more prosaic genealogy assigns no such 
 romantic and exalted origin to Mary Anne Clarke. 
 She was, in fact, cradled either at London or Oxford, 
 and was the daughter of a man named Thompson, 
 whose widow, when Mary Anne was but a child, 
 took for second husband one Farquhar, a London 
 compositor. Of her early years of obscurity little 
 
306 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 is known beyond the fact that, before she had 
 emerged from girlhood, scandal began to be busy 
 with her name and that of a Golden Lane pawn- 
 broker, whom she captivated with her dark eyes, 
 her merry laugh, and her saucy little face, with its 
 retroussi nose and red pouting lips. Before she 
 had seen her sixteenth birthday, however, she had 
 turned a cold shoulder on the amorous pawnbroker, 
 and had allowed a good-looking young mason, 
 named Clarke, to place a wedding ring on her finger 
 in St Pancras Church. 
 
 In such rather sordid fashion did life open for 
 the woman who was fated to enslave a royal prince. 
 Had Mary Anne Clarke found happiness in her 
 wedded life, her story would have died with her. 
 But there was no happiness to be found with the 
 young mason, who, by the time his wife was twenty, 
 had brought four years of drunken and dissolute 
 living to a close in bankruptcy. Wearying of her 
 sottish husband, disgusted by his brutality, Mrs 
 Clarke ran away from her poverty-stricken home, 
 and determined to open a new chapter on her own 
 account. 
 
 For a time we find her living quietly in a Wilt- 
 shire town with a " barrister and baronet " for 
 protector. But such prosaic living was little to 
 the taste of the emancipated wife, who found her 
 baronet even more dull than the small provincial 
 town to which he had brought her. " It is prob- 
 
A PRINCE'S FOLLY 307 
 
 able," to quote the " Authentic Memoirs," " that 
 the uncouth jargon of the law took the place of the 
 soft whispers of love, and her baronet was oftener 
 poring over parchment than feasting on the damask 
 cheek of his fair protegee." But, whatever the 
 reason, the scene was quickly changed ; and we 
 find her back in London coquetting with a variety 
 of new lovers. Now it is two more baronets. Sir 
 Charles Milner and Sir James Brudenell, the latter 
 of whom takes alarm when she presents to him a bill 
 for lace to the amount of two hundred pounds. 
 Now it is a fashionably dressed " macaroni " whom 
 she met one evening in Vauxhall Gardens, and with 
 whom she spends a few weeks in a rustic cottage in 
 Bayswater, until she discovers that the gentleman 
 of fashion and family, which he affected to be, is in 
 reality a cardsharper and a notorious rascal, and 
 she leaves him to the undisturbed enjoyment of the 
 cottage. 
 
 But Mary Anne never had any lack of lovers to 
 succeed each other. To the discredited " macaroni " 
 succeeded Mr Dowler, a young " blood " of the city, 
 and son of a wealthy wine merchant, a gallant who 
 at least had a long purse to satisfy her extravagant 
 tastes ; and it was with the fine feathers provided 
 so generously by the foolish, infatuated city youth 
 that she made her first dashing appearance at 
 Brighton. Here, a chronicler of the time tells us, 
 she created a great sensation among the dashing 
 
308 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 CjTprians ; and " distinguished herself as an excel- 
 lent swimmer, and occasionally used to float upon 
 the liquid element, to the astonishment and 
 admiration of the spectators." 
 
 It is difficult, and perhaps not necessary, to follow 
 the erratic Mrs Clarke through her bewildering 
 changes of lovers and habitations. Among the 
 former we find Lords Barrymore and Londonderry, 
 and an army agent described -as Mr " 0," each of 
 whom fell for a time under the spell of her dark eyes 
 and clever tongue. Captain Gronow speaks of her 
 at this time as a lady of charming manners, and a 
 briUiant talker. " Her great failing was a want 
 of care in the management of her tongue, which 
 spared friend no more than foe." But wherever 
 her vagrant fancy took her — London, Paris or 
 Brighton — she was always surrounded by her 
 court of admirers. 
 
 In London we find her, in 1803, established, at 
 the expense of the mysterious Mr " O," in a hand- 
 some house in Tavistock Place ; and it was prob- 
 ably in this year that the Duke of York first set eyes 
 on her. Whether the first meeting was, as some 
 say, on the Old Steyne at Brighton, or, as others 
 equally confidently assert, in Tavistock Place, we 
 know that the susceptible Frederick was quick to 
 succumb to her opulent and flamboyant charms ; 
 and that within a few weeks she was installed by 
 him as mistress of a still finer house in Gloucester 
 
A PRINCE'S FOLLY 309 
 
 Place, Portman Square, with the " Prince-Bishop " 
 hourly dancing attendance on her. 
 
 The mason's wife had now reached a much more 
 splendid goal than any she had dared to dream of. 
 As avowed mistress of the King's son, Commander- 
 in-Chief of England's army, she lived in an environ- 
 ment of luxury such as any royal lady might have 
 envied. She was daily served, we are told, by 
 twenty servants, of whom two were butlers and 
 three were cooks. More than a thousand pounds 
 went yearly in wages alone. Her furniture was the 
 most sumptuous money could buy. Her service of 
 plate was formerly the property of the Due de Berri ; 
 the pierglasses in the reception-room cost four 
 hundred pounds ; and she drank out of wineglasses 
 bought at two guineas apiece. In her stables were 
 ten horses and two coaches. And when London 
 palled she had a cosy retreat at Weybridge, with 
 another large staff of servants to do her bidding. 
 
 One thousand pounds a month was her regal 
 allowance for current expenses — a sum, she con- 
 temptuously told the Duke, barely sufQcient to pay 
 the bill for wages and liveries. After the first few 
 months clamorous creditors were seldom off her 
 doorstep ; and she confessed she felt as poor as in 
 the days when she was the drunken mason's wife in 
 a London slum. Again and again she had to appeal 
 for loans to the wine merchant's son, who was still 
 her devoted lover ; and more than once it was 
 
310 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Mr Dowler's money which sent the bailiffs 
 packing when they had laid hands on some of 
 the lady's property to satisfy a long-overdue 
 claim. 
 
 But Mrs Clarke was not the woman to tolerate 
 long such an absurd state of things . Her lover was 
 a royal prince, the head of the army, and through 
 him there was much gold to be gleaned by clever 
 hands such as hers. Her good friend Mr Dowler, 
 for instance, coveted a post in the Army Commis- 
 sariat. A word to the Duke, who was her slave, 
 was sufficient to procure the office. The word was 
 quickly spoken ; Mr Dowler received the coveted 
 appointment ; and her promised reward took the 
 gratifpng form of a thousand pounds. Here, then, 
 was a rich harvest to be reaped, and she meant to 
 reap it. What she could do to oblige Mr Dowler, 
 she could do for any one of the large army of 
 office-seekers. 
 
 Army commissions, for instance, were costly 
 luxuries in those days. The regulation price for a 
 majority was two thousand six hundred pounds, 
 for a captaincy one thousand five hundred pounds. 
 She could supply the market cheaper than that ; 
 her royal lover would write his autograph on as 
 many commissions as she wanted ; and thus she 
 was soon dispensing majorities at nine hundred 
 pounds, and captaincies at seven hundred pounds, 
 and so on (all less than half-price) ; and was filling 
 
A PRINCE'S FOLLY 311 
 
 her coffers with gold won by a few coaxing words 
 and endearments. 
 
 If the Commander-in-Chief were not in an amiable 
 mood, it is said, she adopted the simple expedient 
 of forging his signature to the required papers. 
 Indeed, she made so little concealment of her skill 
 with the pen that, on one occasion, she proudly 
 showed to a Mr Town the autograph of the 
 Duke of York and her own imitation of it, so 
 cleverly done that it was impossible to say 
 which was the real signature and which the 
 forgery. 
 
 And this wholesale dispensing of commissions 
 was but one of many new sources of revenue which 
 fed her extravagance. When, in 1804, a Colonel 
 French was anxious to conduct a levy of a regiment 
 for service, she procured the favour for him in 
 return for five hundred pounds down and a guinea 
 out of the bounty for each recruit. In fact, there 
 was scarcely an office of profit, from a barrack- 
 mastership to a deanery or bishopric, which this 
 friend of the Duke was not ready to procure in 
 return for a very substantial fee. But there were 
 limits to the patience of even such a long-suffering 
 man as Frederick, Duke of York. The time arrived 
 when all Mrs Clarke's wiles and coquetries failed to 
 bhnd him to the dangers of the path along which 
 she was leading him. It is more than probable, 
 too, that he had grown weary of his buxom charmer 
 
312 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 of the scathing tongue. At any rate, he authorised 
 his agent, Mr Adam, to inform her that he proposed 
 to break off personal relations with her, and to offer 
 her an annuity of four hundred pounds, so long 
 as she conducted herself becomingly, to leave him. 
 This offer Mrs Clarke scornfully refused ; but 
 rjealising at last that her reign was over, she agreed 
 to accept it, and withdrew into Devonshire. The 
 Duke, however, was not to escape so easily ; for, 
 when her annuity, as was inevitable with such a 
 spendthrift, fell into arrear she began to reveal 
 the tigress that was in her. 
 
 Collecting all the letters the Prince had written 
 to her, she threatened to publish them, together 
 with her own private memoranda, unless the arrears 
 were promptly paid. Not content with this threat, 
 alarming enough in itself, she wrote to the Prince 
 of Wales a full account of his brother's treatment of 
 her. The Duke was, at last, to pay the full price of 
 his folly and infatuation. There had long been a 
 growing indignation at his gross mismanagement 
 of the army, and at the wholesale corruption for 
 which it was known the Commander-in-Chief was 
 largely responsible ; and Colonel Wardle and Sir 
 Francis Burdett were dehghted to discover in Mrs 
 Clarke such an invaluable ally in the attack they 
 intended to make on the Duke. In return for 
 information which she gladly supphed, she was 
 promised five thousand pounds down, and payment 
 
A PRINCE'S FOLLY 313 
 
 of all her debts, an annuity of four hundred pounds 
 and a furnished house. 
 
 Thus equipped with the most damning evidence, 
 Colonel Wardle brought forward his motion in 1809. 
 The inquiry lasted seven weeks, during which 
 Mrs Clarke was constantly called to give evidence, 
 a duty in which she revelled. 
 
 The Duke was acquitted, by a majority of eighty- 
 two, of " personal corruption " ; but his discarded 
 mistress had ample revenge, for after the shameful 
 disclosures at the trial he found it prudent to resign 
 his post at the head of the army. But her satis- 
 faction was qualified when she discovered that 
 neither the annuity, the payment of her debts, nor 
 the five thousand pounds was forthcoming ; and 
 that she herself had to pay the bill for the 
 furnished house ! 
 
 Her best card, however, still remained unplayed. 
 There was a small fortune, beyond a doubt, in the 
 bundles of the Duke's letters to her, and her com- 
 ments on them ; and these she now meant to pub- 
 lish to the world. Eighteen thousand copies were 
 printed, and were just about to be published when 
 the news came to the ears of the Duke of York. 
 There was no time to be lost ; and before another 
 hour had passed Sir Herbert Taylor had an inter- 
 view with Mrs Clarke, the result of which was highly 
 gratifying to both. The eighteen thousand volumes 
 were reduced to ashes ; and in exchange for the 
 
314 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " burnt offering " the editress received ten thous- 
 and pounds in good gold, an undertaking for a Ufe 
 annuity of four hundred pounds for herself, and 
 two hundred pounds for each of her daughters, with 
 a promise that her son should be provided for. 
 
 Thus the curtain was rung down on the drama 
 of a prince's folly and a woman's greed. Mrs Clarke 
 made but one more public appearance, when, in 
 1814, she was sentenced to nine months' imprison- 
 ment for writing a libellous letter. The remainder 
 of her long life of seventy-six years she spent in 
 quiet and respectable retirement, devoting her 
 time to the education of her children ; and she 
 drew the last breath of her strangely romantic 
 Ufe at Boulogne, one June day in 1852. 
 
CHAPTER XXIV 
 
 A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 
 
 Adrienne Lecouvreur, Queen of Tragedy and of 
 Tears ; Queen also of Beauty and of Love. With 
 all the equipment for conquering the world, she 
 seemed fated from her birth to drink the cup of 
 success, and to find it always bitter to the taste. 
 While the world of Paris was at the feet of the 
 greatest tragic actress of her century, and while 
 lovers were strugghng for her smiles, she was 
 vowing that she was weary of hfe. 
 
 " A vindictive and jealous goddess," she wrote, 
 towards the end of her brief day of triumph and 
 tribulation, " presided over my cradle, and directed 
 my destiny with a pitiless violence of persecution." 
 
 And yet this self-avowed victim of an unkind 
 Fate had to thank Fortune for a dower such as falls 
 to the lot of few of her sex. She had a liberal 
 endowment of the beauty which woman most 
 covets ; she had a genius for acting which made 
 her famous throughout the world while still little 
 beyond the threshold of womanhood ; and she had 
 also a singular power to charm and to make friends. 
 But all these gifts of the gods were neutrahsed and 
 turned to bitterness and vanity by a temperament 
 315 
 
316 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 which saw only calamity in conquest and mingled 
 triumph with tears. 
 
 It was probably from her father that Adrienne 
 inherited the mental gloom which spoiled her life ; 
 for Monsieur Lecouvreur was a man of unbalanced 
 brain, who alternated between profound fits of 
 depression and insane outbursts of rage. He was 
 hopelessly mad when he died. To her mother she 
 owed her beauty and her brilliant gifts. 
 
 Adrienne was cradled under a very humble roof, 
 one day in the year 1692, with poverty for nurse, 
 and the sordid for her environment . Her father was 
 a journeyman-hatter of Damery, who, after helpless 
 wanderings in search of work, drifted finally to 
 Paris when his daughter was still a child, remark- 
 able only for a gift of acting, which amazed her poor 
 neighbours. And such was the infection of her 
 enthusiasm that, by the time she was thirteen, she 
 was manageress of a small troupe of schoolfellows 
 who, after careful rehearsing, produced a play and 
 an after-piece in a room lent for the purpose by a 
 sympathetic grocer in the rue Ferou in the Temple 
 Quartier. The play was nothing less ambitious 
 than Corneille's Polyeucte, and the after-piece was 
 Le Deuil, a mournful drama. 
 
 Thus early Tragedy had marked the hatter's 
 daughter for her own, and thus early she began 
 to display those wonderful histrionic gifts which, 
 within twelve years, were to make her one of the 
 
A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 317 
 
 greatest tragediennes the world had seen. So 
 remarkable was the child's presentment of PauUne 
 in Polyeude that night after night the grocer's 
 room was packed to suffocation by audiences now 
 melted to tears, now roused to frenzies of applause. 
 The fame of her genius went through Paris ; and 
 soon Court ladies were flocking, with fashionable 
 actors and actresses, to see the " gutter girl " who 
 promised to become " the greatest actress Paris had 
 ever known." Such, in fact, was the pilgrimage 
 to the rue Ferou that the " theatre " was soon 
 hopelessly too small, and it became necessary to 
 seek more spacious quarters. These were provided 
 by the generosity of a Madame Du Gue, who 
 placed the courtyard of her big house in the rue 
 Garanciere at the service of the youthful troupe. 
 
 But Adrienne's triumph was destined to an 
 abrupt and early end. The jealousy of the players 
 of the Theatre Frangais was roused to such a pitch 
 that the help of the law was invoked to suppress 
 this "ilUcit " theatre, which was taking their best 
 patrons to the Paris slums ; and one night the police 
 appeared in the rue Garanciere to close its doors. 
 For a time Adrienne transferred her troupe to the 
 Temple precincts, where she could defy the poHce ; 
 but the-glamour was gone, and after a few more days 
 of struggUng existence the play was withdrawn. 
 
 Although Adrienne's first dramatic venture had 
 thus closed in defeat, her reputation as a trage- 
 
318 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 dienne of phenomenal promise survived; and when, 
 in 1706, she left her home for the hfe of a strolling 
 actress, she was rapturously received wherever she 
 went, from Luneville and Strasburg to Nancy and 
 Verdun. By the time she was nineteen she was 
 actress at the Lorraine Court ; and was also 
 drawing a salary of two hundred Hvres a year 
 at Strasburg. 
 
 But still she was not happy. The applause and 
 flatteries of her countless admirers were powerless 
 to make her indifferent to the disagreeables in her 
 hfe. Every exhibition of jealousy wounded her ; 
 she shrank from the famiharities of the actors who 
 were her associates, and the discomforts of her 
 journeys and lodgings. She fumed and fretted 
 against the Fate which so long withheld her from 
 the supreme position which she knew was hers 
 by the right of genius. 
 
 Even love brought her no compensating satis- 
 faction. " What is there to live for," she once said 
 at this time, " without love ? " And yet, when 
 love came to her with open arms, she either rejected 
 it or found no pleasure in it. D'Argental, a man of 
 handsome exterior and brilliant gifts, was her veriest 
 slave, following her wherever she went, helping her, 
 and protecting her with the most chivalrous devo- 
 tion. She accepted all his services ; but she would 
 listen to no vows of love, though they were those 
 of an honest man, whose only wish was to call her 
 
A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 319 
 
 " wife." To many another, infinitely less worthy, 
 she conceded everything woman should hold most 
 dear. She gave her love to a rascally baron who 
 had a wife in Picardy ; and when he died she shed 
 many tears over his loss — until the good-looking 
 and graceless PhiUppe le Roy, a Lothario from 
 Lorraine, came to take his place in her affections 
 and to become father of her child. 
 
 When she grew weary of le Roy, it was Clavel, 
 the actor, whom she took to her arms, and alter- 
 nately dazzled with her smiles and bedewed with 
 her tears ; for her love, like her whole life, was 
 ever lachrymose. Such was the spell which Clavel 
 cast over her that she would gladly have made a 
 husband of him, had he met her less than halfway. 
 
 She even humbled herself to him in an abject and 
 pathetic letter, in which she wrote, " Do not spare 
 me. Promise nothing that you are not prepared 
 to perform, even if you promise to hate me. That 
 is better than being deceived. I care more for 
 your interests than for my own. . . . Follow your 
 inclination without too much thought of the conse- 
 quences. I shall play my part whether I keep you 
 or lose you. If I lose you I shall hope that it may 
 not be entirely : that I shall still have a httle of 
 your esteem. If you are happy, I shall be glad to 
 know that I have not stood in your way, and if you 
 are not, it will not be I who have made you unhappy 
 — and so I shall try to console myself." 
 
320 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 But even such an appeal as this was wasted on 
 Clavel, who, while quite ready to play the role of 
 lover, Was by no means disposed to place a wedding 
 ring on Adrienne's finger. Then it was that, dis- 
 illusioned once more, she wrote bitterly, " I am 
 utterly sick of love, and feel greatly tempted to have 
 done with it for the rest of my life ; for, after all, I 
 have no wish to die or to go mad." She wiped her 
 tears away, however, when Monsieur de Klinglin, 
 one of Strasburg's magnates, came a-wooing. But 
 again her evil fate pursued her ; for after a few 
 weeks of dalliance the Strasburg magnate withdrew 
 his affection, and in disgust she retired to Paris, to 
 forget her grief in pursuit of the fame which she 
 knew would be hers in the French capital. 
 
 She was now at the zenith of her powers, and 
 Paris received its prodigal daughter, who had 
 stayed too long away, with open arms. Nor was 
 its high expectation falsified ; for at her first 
 appearance at the Comedie Fran^aise, in the part 
 of Monime, her triumph was immediate, electrical. 
 A new planet had swum into the firmament of the 
 stage, echpsing all other luminaries. No actress 
 had ever had such power to move by a sigh, to thrill 
 by a glance or to terrify by a cry. All Paris was 
 at the feet of the woman who was such a subhme 
 incarnation of Tragedy ; and for thirteen years she 
 retained her supremacy, unapproached and un- 
 approachable. " There are four marvels in Paris," 
 
A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 321 
 
 d'Allainval wrote to an English friend ; and among 
 the four he placed Mademoiselle Lecouvreur second 
 only to the Tuileries ; and Voltaire wrote of her as 
 the woman who " in Greece would have had altars 
 erected in her honour." 
 
 Copyel painted a charming picture of her at this 
 time, as Cordelia. This portrait, which, unfortun- 
 ately, only survives in an engraving, reveals a 
 woman daintily fashioned, from her small, grace- 
 fully poised head to her prettily moulded arms and 
 delicate fingers, with large, upturned eyes, full of 
 an unspeakable sorrow. " Infinitely elegant and 
 gracious," " full of charm, subtlety and dehcacy," 
 "a small and exquisite creature" — such are the 
 words in which her contemporaries describe her. 
 
 Adrienne had now reached the goal of her 
 ambition. She was universally acknowledged the 
 greatest actress of her day ; she was the idol of the 
 Paris populace, and the pet of its ladies ; and her 
 salon was crowded with the rank and fashion of 
 France. But even now, when life should have been 
 all sunshine, happiness eluded her. There is an 
 undercurrent of sadness in her brightest letters. 
 The evil goddess who had seated herself beside her 
 cradle was still, she was convinced, pursuing her, 
 tincturing all her successes with disappointment. 
 
 " You think I am happy, the most enviable of my 
 sex," she wrote to a friend of her earlier years. 
 " Do you know, I would gladly exchange all my so- 
 
322 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 called triumphs for a year of the time you remember 
 when I was playing at acting in the rue Ferou." A 
 Word or a look of jealousy could make her miserable 
 for a week ; and even her friendships, which she 
 prized more than all her success on the stage and 
 in society, brought her, she said, " more pain than 
 pleasure." 
 
 But still there was love, which, in spite of her 
 experience, she considered the one thing worth 
 living for — and love still continued to fail her, 
 though it came in such seductive guises as my 
 Lord Peterborough and Maurice de Saxe, the 
 greatest soldier and one of the handsomest men 
 of his day. 
 
 Maurice de Saxe, future Marshal of France, had 
 for father Augustus the Second, Elector of Saxony 
 and King of Poland, and for mother the Countess 
 Aurora von Konigsmarck, one of Sweden's most 
 beautiful daughters. From his father he inherited 
 the gigantic frame and brawny muscles which made 
 Augustus famous in Europe as " the Strong " ; 
 to his mother he owed his good looks ; and to both 
 parents that strain of romance and adventure which 
 made him notorious as the Prince of Lotharios. 
 
 Never was man better equipped for the conquest 
 of woman, and never was woman more speedily 
 conquered than Adrienne Lecouvreur. From the 
 moment of their first meeting in 1721 there was only 
 one man in all the world for her. In comparison 
 
A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 323 
 
 with the ardour of this new passion all her past 
 affairs of the heart were as night to day. She was 
 dazzled by the splendour of her new lover — ^his 
 handsome face, his stalwart figure, his air of viriUty 
 and command, his semi-royal rank. That he was 
 younger than herself by a few years mattered 
 nothing to her — and seemingly as little to him, 
 for there could be no question of his devotion. 
 
 Thus passed three years of the greatest happiness 
 she had known, disturbed, it is true, by her lover's 
 infidehties, of which he made no concealment. 
 Disloyal as he was, he always returned penitent to 
 her arms ; and was always assured of forgiveness. 
 Three such years of modified bliss, and then her 
 dream came to its awakening. Maurice must leave 
 her. The Duchy of Courland was in the market, 
 and he was determined that he would be the new 
 Duke ; for, in spite of his bar sinister, his ambition 
 always soared to a throne. 
 
 There were many tears at the parting ; but, after 
 all, it was but for a time, and Maurice wotdd come 
 back to her with his new dignity. He vowed it on 
 his knees. Meanwhile she could help him ; and 
 this she did by seUing every jewel she possessed, 
 and giving him the proceeds, forty thousand Hvres, 
 as a parting present. But Maurice Saxe was as 
 false in love as he was brave in war ; and soon 
 stories came to Adrienne of his flirtations with one 
 fair lady after another in distant Courland, to two 
 
324 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 of whom — ^the Grand Duchess Elizabeth Petrovna 
 and Anna Ivanovna, widow of the late Duke — ^he 
 had even offered marriage. 
 
 For once, however, de Saxe's good fortune was 
 to fail him. He missed his way both to the duchy 
 and the altar ; and once more came back, a penitent, 
 to the woman he had betrayed, who again received 
 him with arms of welcome. And again she had the 
 same reward, of infidelities conducted under her 
 very eyes, until at last her long forbearance was 
 broken down, and she wrote to her old lover, 
 d'Argental, still faithful to her, " I am distracted 
 with rage and wretchedness. It is natural to cry 
 out against such falseness. This man ought to 
 know me, ought to love me — oh, my God ! what 
 am I to do ? " 
 
 The limits of her patience had been reached" at 
 last, after seven years of such perfidy ; and the end 
 came when de Saxe began to pay attentions to the 
 Duchesse de Bouillon, the most disreputable woman 
 at Louis' Court. Then it was that, when playing in 
 Phedre, she turned her flaming eyes on the woman 
 who had supplanted her, and hurled at her the 
 scathing words of her part, " I am not one of those 
 brazen women who, tasting a shameful peace in 
 crime, can show to the world a face which knows 
 not how to blush." The Duche^e left the theatre 
 with the thunders of sympathetic applause in her 
 ears. 
 
A QUEEN OF TRAGEDY 325 
 
 But the curtain was soon to fall on the brief 
 drama (tragedy she would have called it) of 
 Adrienne's Ufe. One March day in 1730 Paris was 
 shocked to learn that the great actress was dead — 
 that she had died suddenly, tragically. There were 
 whispers of poison, which soon took the form of 
 circumstantial tales. She had been poisoned by 
 the Duchesse de Bouillon, in revenge for the pubhc 
 insult she had inflicted on her. And support was 
 lent to the accusation by the fact that it was not 
 the first time the Duchesse had been suspected of 
 thus getting rid of someone she hated. But a few 
 weeks earher Paris had been horrified by a similar 
 crime. A woman whom the Duchesse was known 
 to hate had died after eating a poisoned lozenge. 
 
 This time, however, Paris was wrong. For many 
 months Adrienne's health had been failing. " It 
 drives me to despair," she had written to a friend. 
 She had had more than one severe attack of 
 dysentery ; and it was dysentery that attacked her 
 again on 15th March 1730, when she was playing 
 in Voltaire's (Edype. Although she was in agony 
 she played her part bravely to the end. Then she 
 fainted, and was carried home, where, four days 
 later, she " went out like a candle " ! • 
 
 During her last hours a priest vainly urged her to 
 repent, so that he might administer the last Sacra- 
 ment . To all his pleading and threats she returned 
 a refusal ; and with a last effort raised herself in 
 
326 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 bed, and, pointing with outstretched hand to a bust 
 of Maurice de Saxe, said proudly, " There is my 
 world, ijiy hope, and my God ! " 
 
 Thus impenitent and loving to the last died 
 Adrienne Lecouvreur at the very zenith of her 
 powers and her triumphs. Among the last words 
 she uttered were these, " I am glad to go from a 
 world in which nothing seems ever to go right with 
 me." Her fatal pessimism followed her to the end ; 
 the ill-luck she bemoaned pursued her still further 
 — ^to the grave itself ; for Christian burial was 
 denied her, and her body, wrapped in a sheet and 
 coffinless, was carried at dead of night to a waste 
 piece of land on the bank of the Seine, and buried 
 there without a word of benediction or farewell. 
 
 Many years later her sordid resting-place was 
 discovered by d'Argental, who placed over it a 
 tablet of marble, on which were inscribed tender 
 verses in memory of the woman he had loved so 
 loyally and so vainly. As for de Saxe, who gave 
 a further proof of his heartlessness by selHng her 
 horses almost before the breath had left her body, 
 he got his Courland dukedom and his marshal's 
 baton ; and, after making Europe ring with the 
 fame of his martial exploits, died, full of honours, a 
 score of years after the woman who had given her 
 all to him was flung into a nameless grave. 
 
CHAPTER XXV 
 
 THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 
 
 When Alexander I. first opened his eyes on the 
 world it was to the thunder of two hundred cannon 
 from the fortress of Peter and Paul, and to the 
 clashing of bells from every steeple in St Peters- 
 burg. Solemn services of thanksgiving were held ; 
 odes were composed in honour of the Tsar-to-be ; 
 and from one end of Russia to the other the wave 
 of rejoicing flowed. 
 
 As for Catherine, the Empress, she was beside 
 herself with joy at the birth of a grandson, who 
 should succeed to her throne and perpetuate her 
 glories. She had never made any concealment of 
 a disUke, amounting almost to hatred, of her son 
 Paul, Alexander's father ; or of her desire, if 
 possible, to exclude him from the crown. Now, 
 at last, she was assured of a successor after her 
 heart ; for she meant to train the royal infant 
 to walk worthily in her own footsteps. 
 
 " I warrant," she wrote to Grimm, when the 
 child had not been many days in his cradle, " that 
 you know nothing about Monsieur Alexander. It 
 is not Alexander the Great ; do not imagine it ; but 
 a very small Alexander, who was only born on the 
 327 
 
328 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 twelfth of this month." And a year later she 
 wrote, " You must know that when you speak of 
 Monsieur Alexander you touch a weak spot in me. 
 I dote upon him ; and I intend, if possible, to have 
 him always with me. He has the pleasant temper 
 of a child in good health, is full of high spirits, 
 ingratiating in manner, and as beautiful as a little 
 god of love. Everybody is fond of him, I more than 
 others, and I can do anything I like with him." 
 
 Every letter of the Empress is equally eloquent 
 of her devotion to the little Alexander — of his good 
 looks, his winning ways, his extraordinary intelli- 
 gence. Now she is teaching him his A B C, and he 
 only a year and a half old ! And now she is 
 planting moral maxims in his little head, or looking 
 rapturously on as his portrait is being painted. 
 " May God bless M. Alexander," she exclaims, 
 " who is, and always will be, the first-born in 
 everything- — ^in mind and will ! ... If he does not 
 get on in the world, I do not know who would. I 
 am mistaken if the beauty of mind and soul will 
 not equal that of his body." 
 
 Such, in the doting words of his grandmother, was 
 the son of Paul, " the mad Tsar," and grandson of 
 Peter III., " drunkard and imbecile," each of whom 
 had closed a turbulent reign in tragedy — one, 
 strangled by assassins in his own bedroom, while 
 his wife battered vainly at the locked door ; the 
 other (Peter III.) foully assassinated, if not at 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 329 
 
 Catherine's instigation, at least with her tacit 
 consent. It was a pitiful heritage for any child ; 
 and, with the taint of insanity and tragedy in his 
 blood, Alexander could scarcely hope for a normal 
 life — ^nor, as we shall see, did he have it. 
 
 That, however, his childhood was full of promise 
 there can be no doubt. He was, in fact, all that 
 his grandmother Catherine painted him. He was 
 beautiful as a child of love or of dreams ; at four 
 years, so precocious was he, he could read German 
 and chatter fluently in French and English ; and 
 he had the sweetest of dispositions. " He does 
 not know what it is to be ill-tempered ; and how 
 obedient, how fond of giving, especially to those 
 who are in want ; how grateful to those about him ; 
 how ready to do good, and yet never idle or un- 
 occupied for a single moment." We see this 
 prodigy of four mixing colours, chopping wood, 
 cleaning the furniture, acting as coachman or 
 groom, teaching himself to read, write, draw and 
 count ; always merry, always occupied — a sturdy, 
 healthy, beautiful and winsome boy^ 
 
 And thus, idolised by his grandmother, petted 
 and spoilt by every Court lady, he grew up to 
 handsome youth, ruling all by his lovableness and 
 accepting their homage as his due. It was perhaps 
 only natural that a boy so fascinating should be 
 in danger in a Court to which his grandmother still 
 set such an example of loose morals. Although 
 
330 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 more than forty years had gone since Soltykoff and 
 Poniatowski made such open love to Peter's wife, 
 she was still not too old to find pleasure in dallying 
 with their remote successors, and found Zubov as 
 irresistible as ever was Gregory Orloff or Patiomkin. 
 But, although she allowed herself such licence, 
 and set such a sorry example of living, she was 
 frankly alarmed at the similar dangers which now 
 threatened her good-looking grandson, who was 
 already beginning to show too much pleasure in 
 the society of her maids-of-honour. 
 
 ' ' One thing, ' ' she confesses, ' ' causes me anxiety — 
 the danger he incurs with regard to women. They 
 all run after him, which is natural ; for everybody 
 is attracted by his fascinating appearance. What 
 is more, he is unaware of his good looks, and seems, 
 so far,to care little about his appearance." Already, 
 when Alexander was still little advanced in his 
 teens, there were smiles and whisperings at Court 
 which had their inspiration in the Prince's pre- 
 cocious gallantry. The hereditary instinct was 
 strong in him. Every one of his ancestors had 
 been a " ladies' man," and Alexander had the same 
 blood in his young veins, alhed to a greater power 
 to charm than any one of them ever possessed. 
 And all the wise counsel and warnings of his tutors, 
 La Harpe and Soltykoff, were powerless to lead his 
 footsteps in less perilous paths. 
 
 It was clearly time that a wife should be found 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 331 
 
 for her too volatile grandson, Catherine was quick 
 to decide, when even his tutor reported to her, 
 " The Grand Duke is growing lazy. Physical 
 desires are manifesting themselves, which are con- 
 stantly increasing in a measure as the Prince often 
 converses with good-looking women." Even 
 Napoleon, when he was staying at Vilna, remarked 
 on Alexander's attraction. " He is exceedingly 
 amiable," he said to the Lithuanian ladies. " I 
 can see that he has turned all your heads and won 
 all your hearts." 
 
 Thus it was that, in 1792, when the Grand Duke 
 was but fifteen. Count Roumyanzev was despatched 
 in haste to the courts of Europe in search of a 
 suitable bride for him, to return a few months later 
 bringing with him, from Baden, two charming 
 young girls, the Princesses Louisa and Frederika, 
 of whom the elder was only fourteen. " As for the 
 young man," Catherina wrote to Grimm, "he is 
 quite ignorant of all that is going on, in his innocence 
 of heart. It is a diabolical trick I am playing 
 him." 
 
 But in spite, possibly because, of his ignorance 
 the Grand Duke was quick to find one at least of the 
 Baden princesses, Louisa, very fair to look upon ; 
 and he was at a loss to understand why, when she 
 first saw him, she turned pale and began to tremble. 
 He did not know with what dread she had come to 
 Russia ; how, when she was leaving her childhood's 
 
332 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 home, she had tried to fling herself out of the 
 carriage ; and how, when she saw the mountains 
 of her native land sinking below the horizon behind 
 her, she had stretched her arms to them in vain 
 appeal and farewell. 
 
 She was a reluctant bride to come to the arms of 
 any prince, however charming ; but at least her 
 lover appeared to be devoted to her, everyone was 
 kind, and the Empress almost smothered her with 
 affection. Catherine, in fact, was dehghted with 
 the Baden princess, as also was Alexander's mother, 
 Maria Feodorovna, who declared, " She is not 
 only beautiful, but from her whole figure there 
 emanates a charm which wins the heart of the most 
 indifferent ; she captivates with her amiability and 
 her candour " ; while Catherine jubilantly wrote, 
 " Two angels have been engaged to each other. 
 There is nothing so beautiful as the fianc6 of fifteen 
 and his fiancee of fourteen. Besides, they are in 
 love with each other." 
 
 The betrothal was celebrated with a brilhant 
 sequence of banquets and balls ; and the marriage 
 with a pomp and splendour such as St Petersburg 
 had rarely witnessed. Seldom has wedded Ufe 
 opened with a fairer prospect. But almost before 
 the honeymoon had waned the Grand Duchess 
 Ehzabeth Alexevna (the name by which she was 
 henceforth to be known) knew that her forebodings 
 were to be realised after all. The Prince's brief 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 333 
 
 infatuation gave place to indifference, and then to 
 a marked neglect of his young bride. He would 
 leave her to weep alone in her apartments while he 
 sought his pleasure with his boon companions of 
 both sexes. Even his studies no longer had any 
 attraction for him. He flung his books aside to 
 share the pranks of his comrades, any wild escapade 
 that the mood prompted. 
 
 He would even find his pleasure in the company 
 of his servants, sharing their games and dissipa- 
 tions, and associating with them on terms of the 
 utmost familiarity. And when he had a small 
 theatre installed in the palace the gulf between 
 himself and his wife grew still wider ; for he found 
 dalljnng with pretty actresses much more to his 
 taste than the company of a Grand Duchess whose 
 silence was a reproach, and her tears a depression. 
 
 Wounded by her husband's neglect, and outraged 
 by his infidehty, EUzabeth's pride would not 
 permit her to make any effort to win back his love. 
 She took refuge in an affected indifference ; and, 
 while forcing herself to appear gay to the world, she 
 was seen more than once with tears streaming down 
 her cheeks, gazing at the portrait of the man she 
 loved, woman-hke, all the more that he cared 
 nothing for her. 
 
 Meanwhile, Alexander found abundant solace in 
 one liaison after another. For eleven years one 
 woman, the wife of a Court official, held him in 
 
334 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 thrall, and became mother of three children, of 
 whom two died in infancy. On the third child, 
 who grew up to beautiful girlhood, he lavished the 
 tenderest affection long after he had wearied of her 
 faithless mother ; in fact, she was the chief object 
 of his love and devotion to the last hour when she 
 was tragically taken from him. 
 
 As the years passed, the morbid nature which 
 he had inherited from his father began to manifest 
 itself more and more. He found no happiness in 
 his position as heir to a great throne, or in his 
 splendid prospect. " I am not suited for a Court 
 life," he wrote in 1794. " I am not made for the 
 high position I now hold, and still less for that 
 which is reserved for me in the future, and from 
 which I have sworn to myself to escape in some 
 way or other. My plan is, when the time comes, 
 to retire with my wife to the shores of the Rhine, 
 there to lead the quiet life of a retired individual." 
 And when, a little later, he came under the influence 
 of Baroness Kruedener, pietist and mystic, his 
 revulsion against the hoUowness of courts and the 
 vanities of the world was complete. He was filled 
 with horror at the hfe he had been leading ; and 
 from that time the most beautiful of women smiled 
 on him in vain. 
 
 The fate he dreaded was now very near to him. 
 One morning, in 1801, Valerian knocked at his 
 door and informed him that " all was over." 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 335 
 
 " What is over ? " demanded the startled Grand 
 Duke. " Your father is dead, and you are 
 Emperor. ' ' Then he knew that his father had been 
 done to death ; and in his horror he exclaimed, 
 " I will not accept a crown stained with blood." 
 He had known that a plot was on foot to assassinate 
 the Tsar, and had spoken no word to stay it. And 
 now the curse had come upon him. From this 
 hour there was to be no more peace for him. " His 
 grief and remorse," says Czartorysky, " were in- 
 expressibly deep and touching. He continually 
 saw in his imagination the mutilated body of his 
 father, and his mental tortures never ceased. For 
 hours he remained alone, sitting in silence, with 
 fixed and haggard looks." 
 
 He refused to leave his room ; and was dragged, 
 pale and semi-conscious, into the presence of his 
 soldiers, to receive their oath of alle^ance. And 
 when, later, he looked on his father's distorted, 
 mangled face, and his mother, turning to him, said 
 in a voice of terrible reproach, " Now I wish you 
 joy ; you are Emperor," he gave a heart-broken 
 cry, and fell to the floor in a dead faint. Under 
 such tragic conditions did Alexander I. come to 
 the throne of Russia, as pitiful and unwilling a 
 sovereign as ever put on a crown. 
 
 Even in the brilhant and sumptuous festivals 
 that accompanied his crowning, and with the 
 acclamations of his subjects in his ears, he could not 
 
336 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 for a moment shake off the gloom that lay so heavily 
 on him. He felt himself branded the murderer 
 of his father ; and all the rejoicing of Russia was 
 powerless to give him a moment's pleasure. But 
 there was a heavy task awaiting him, and he must 
 at any cost to himself face it. He stopped the war 
 with England, and entered into treaties with France 
 and Sweden and Persia. He sheathed the sword 
 which his father had so ruthlessly drawn ; and in 
 its place inaugurated an era of peace. 
 
 In his own empire one reform quickly succeeded 
 another, while Europe looked on in wonder and 
 applause at the revolution the young monarch was 
 working. But through it all he carried a heavy 
 heart aiid a tortured conscience, which gave him 
 no moment's rest. He was haunted day and night 
 by the phantoms of his unbalanced brain, and by 
 the fear that he could never make peace with God ; 
 and he would frequently retire in the midst of a 
 brilliant reception to pray and weep in his private 
 oratory. 
 
 Thus the years passed. The golden dawn of 
 his reign faded quickly, and war succeeded war 
 — against France, England, Sweden, Turkey, the 
 very countries to which he had offered the hand of 
 friendship. Then, to crown his misfortunes and 
 his failures, his beloved natural daughter, now 
 grown to lovely young womanhood, died of con- 
 sumption on the very eve of her marriage. When 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 337 
 
 the terrible news came to him, as he was reviewing 
 his Guards, the Emperor " began to tremble 
 violently, while a deathlike pallor overspread his 
 face." He had, however, sufficient self-control to 
 aJlow the Guards to continue their parade ; but he 
 was overheard to say, " The punishment of my sins 
 has now fallen upon me." 
 
 It was, he felt, a judgment of God for the sins 
 he had committed against the wife who had been 
 so patient and forgiving ; and it was to her that he 
 now txirned for comfort in the hour of his great 
 sorrow. Nor did he turn in vain, for Elizabeth 
 took him gladly to her heart, and from that moment 
 of forgiveness they were inseparable. 
 
 But more trouble was in store for Alexander. 
 His wife's health, undermined by years of suffering, 
 began to break down ; the doctors, powerless to 
 check the chest affection which had attacked her, 
 decided that she must seek a warmer chmate, and 
 advised her to go to her native Baden. The Tsar 
 insisted on accompanying her, and after twenty 
 days of travelling they reached Taganrog, where, 
 as Elizabeth seemed much stronger, he left her for 
 a visit to the Crimea and Eupatoria. When at 
 last he returned to Taganrog, worn out by the 
 fatigues and hardships of his long journey, he was 
 attacked by typhoid fever, and, to his wife's intense 
 grief, was soon at death's door. The doctors were 
 powerless to save him, and on the ist of December 
 
338 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 (1825), after kissing Elizabeth's hand in loving and 
 everlasting farewell, he breathed his last. 
 
 " Our angel is in heaven — and I remain on earth," 
 Elizabeth wrote, a few days later, to the Empress 
 Maria Feodorovna. " Who could have believed 
 that I, weak and sickly as I am, would have been 
 the one to survive ? . . . Since my terrible loss, 
 one thought alone has had any power to comfort 
 me, and that is that I cannot long outlive him. I 
 cherish the hope of being ere long reunited to him." 
 That hope was soon to be fulfilled, for within five 
 months Elizabeth, too, was at rest. 
 
 Such is the story of Alexander's death which 
 was generally accepted. But was he really dead ? 
 It is significant that, although his cof&n was ex- 
 posed in the Kazan Cathedral for seven days, no 
 one was allowed to look on the face of the dead 
 man in it ; the reason assigned for the refusal 
 being " the change in the face of the deceased, 
 which had turned black already at Taganrog." 
 Many resolutely refused to believe that the 
 closed coffin held the Tsar's body, remembering 
 as they did his vow " to escape in some way or 
 other " from the burden of his crown. 
 
 Nearly forty years later, on the 20th of January 
 1864, to quote Dr Rappoport, "there died in 
 Tomsk, at the age of eighty-seven, a hermit of the 
 name of Feodor Konsmitsh. He had been sur- 
 rounded by the aureole of saintliness. He was of 
 
THE ROMANCE OF A TSAR 339 
 
 tall stature and imposing demeanour. His manner 
 was gentle, but often his glance became severe and 
 commanding. Eye-witnesses who had known 
 Alexander I. maintained that the saintly hermit 
 was none other than the autocrat of Russia ; and 
 photographs of the celebrated hermit standing in 
 his cell, clad in a long white garment, showed a 
 striking resemblance to the late Emperor." 
 
 Was this, then, the real end of the Emperor who, 
 wearied of the high position for which he was 
 " not made," pursued by phantoms of remorse for 
 a misspent life, had escaped from the world to spend 
 the remainder of his days in prayer and penitence 
 in a hermit's cell ? 
 
CHAPTER XXVI 
 
 AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 
 
 Ninon de Lenclos — a perfume, sweet and deli- 
 cate, still clings to the name, although the woman 
 who bore it has been dust these two centuries. 
 For half-a-dozen generations women have sought 
 to emulate her loveliness with blooms and powders 
 which perpetuate her name ; but it needs no such 
 flattering tribute of her sex to preserve the memory 
 of one of the most beautiful and graceful women who 
 have ever lured men by the magic of their charms. 
 
 To this day no one can claim to understand the 
 bewitching and fascinating lady who played such 
 havoc with the hearts and senses of men while our 
 Stuart kings were wearing their crowns. She was 
 an inscrutable problem in her own time ; her 
 charms defied description, as her complex and con- 
 tradictory character eluded analysis. And she still 
 remains, as she must ever remain, an enigma. 
 
 The most seductive of women, her greatest 
 ambition was to " be a man " ; the envy and des- 
 piser of her own sex, she never scrupled to betray 
 its weaknesses to the very men whom she enslaved 
 by their exercise ; the child of an austerely pious 
 mother, she scoffed at religion ; to the meretricious 
 
 340 
 
yu'mm ^^'=/ (bnc/fTi). 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 341 
 
 arts of the courtesan she allied gifts and graces of 
 mind to which the greatest intellects in France paid 
 homage ; and to her last day she made a mockery 
 of all that woman should hold most sacred, as when 
 she laughingly declared to Fontenelle, " You know 
 what I have done with my body. Well, I could 
 have sold my soul still more profitably. The 
 Jesuits and Jansenists both wanted it." 
 
 Ninon de Lenclos made her entry on the stage of 
 life — ^for hfe was ever a puppet-show to her — one 
 November day in the year 1620. She was the 
 daughter of strangely contrasted parents. Her 
 father was a devotee of pleasure, a man whose 
 amours and excesses generally were a scandal to all 
 who knew him, and whose only redeeming quality 
 appears to have been his skill on the lute, which, 
 with his vices, he transmitted to his daughter. 
 Her mother was, by way of contrast, a woman of 
 austere piety, who spent her days in masses and 
 prayers, and in the company of devotional books, 
 while her husband was reveUing with his boon 
 companions of both sexes. 
 
 Both parents were equally devoted to Ninon ; 
 each sought to lead her by widely divergent roads ; 
 and it was the father who succeeded, for his hot, 
 lawless passions ran in her blood. As a child Ninon, 
 who, with the promise of a rare beauty, developed 
 a strong will of her own, shocked all by her wild 
 pranks, and her contempt for the reUgion her 
 
342 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 mother vainly tried to instil into her. She would 
 fling away the good books Madame de Lenclos 
 offered her for reading, and would rush out of the 
 room, dancing and singing some low song from the 
 cabarets which her father had taught her. She 
 refused point-blank to accompany her mother to 
 church ; and loved to horrify her by some such 
 cynicism as this, " Those who need the help of 
 religion are much to be pitied, for they must either 
 have no brains or a very corrupt heart." 
 
 So rapid was her development that, long before 
 she entered her teens, her gifts and her character 
 were as formed as those of girls twice her age. At 
 ten she was saturated with the heresies and lax 
 morality of Montaigne ; she played the lute and 
 danced the saraband with the witchery of a con- 
 summate artist ; she dazzled all by her wit and 
 epigrams, while shocking them by her disregard for 
 decency ; and while she revelled in the society of 
 men, she showed that contempt for her own sex 
 which she carried through her long Ufe. 
 
 Of a child so precocious it is little surprise to learn 
 that she had a lover at fifteen — one Saint-Etienne, 
 a handsome and rakish army captain, who paid 
 assiduous court to the fascinating schoolgirl. But, 
 as with most of her later lovers, the captain's tenure 
 was brought to an eariy conclusion, when Cardinal 
 Richeheu, then at the zenith of his power as Louis 
 XIIL's right hand, set covetous eyes on her, and 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 343 
 
 offered to make her his mistress . Between the poor 
 cavalry officer and the all-powerful Cardinal there 
 could be no question of choice ; and Ninon was 
 quick to transfer her affection to the man who, 
 though older than her own father, was the greatest 
 in all Europe. 
 
 A few years earlier her rascally father had 
 crowned his career of infamy by murder, and was 
 a fugitive from justice, with a heavy price on his 
 head ; and no doubt Ninon was glad to escape from 
 the prayers and sighs of her mother to the luxury 
 that surrounded Richeheu's favourites. But even 
 Richelieu could not long hold such a butterfly of 
 pleasure ; and when, in 1841, Lenclos phe came 
 back to France to die, he found his daughter 
 surrounded by a small army of lovers, whom 
 she cynically grouped in three classes — ^the payers, 
 the martyrs and the favourites. 
 
 Monsieur de Lenclos confessed himself deUghted 
 at such fruit of his training, and with his dying 
 breath gave his daughter the characteristic counsel, 
 " Be scrupulous only in the choice of your plea- 
 sures ; never mind about the number " — ^advice 
 which Ninon scarcely required, for no woman was 
 less disposed to quarrel with the number of her 
 admirers, or more careful in making their selection 
 minister to her pleasure. 
 
 Thus, at twenty, we find this extraordinary 
 woman fully launched on her career of conquest. 
 
344 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 as shameless as it was splendid. The last frail 
 barrier between her and the fullest licence she 
 coveted was her pious mother ; and when Madame 
 de Lenclos followed her husband to the grave three 
 years later, Ninon was her own absolute mistress, 
 free to fashion her hfe as she would. Her fortune 
 was small, it is true ; but it was sufficient to supply 
 her with all reasonable luxury, and, above all, it 
 made her independent. She could pick and choose 
 among her legion of lovers, without any care for 
 the gold her favours could demand. 
 
 Was Ninon de Lenclos really beautiful? This 
 was a question as much disputed in her own day as 
 in ours. Tallemant, who knew her well, declares 
 point-blank " she never was a beauty " ; and his 
 verdict is endorsed by other chroniclers of her age. 
 And yet her pictures show us a face singularly 
 attractive — of perfect oval, illuminated by large, 
 brilliant eyes in which lurks a strange magnetism, 
 with dehcately arched eyebrows, an exquisitely 
 modelled nose, and a sweet rosebud mouth. She 
 had, we are told, a skin of dazzhng fairness, a figure 
 faultless in its curved symmetry, and with grace in 
 all its movements. 
 
 But one is conscious that no mere catalogue of 
 physical charms can explain the spell Ninon de 
 Lenclos cast over men. Beyond and apart from 
 them all, there was that elusive feminine witchery 
 which is more powerful than any beauty of face or 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 345 
 
 figure, and which is as impossible to define as to 
 resist. And to this were allied a voice of caressing 
 sweetness, a sparkhng wit and a briUiant conversa- 
 tional gift which could range over all subjects, from 
 theology to the theatre, and which held the cleverest 
 men in thrall. 
 
 But though no woman of her time loved talking 
 more, or could talk better, Ninon found her chief 
 pleasure in the conquest of man. All she asked 
 was freedom to choose her lovers, and to dismiss 
 them at her sweet and capricious will. " Love is 
 a passion, not a virtue," she once declared ; " and 
 a passion does not turn into a virtue because it 
 happens to last — ^it merely becomes a longer 
 passion." Ninon never allowed love to assume 
 for her an aspect of ennui. " I think I may love 
 you for three months," she said to the Marquis de 
 S^vigne, " and that is an eternity for me ! " And 
 thus it is that her lovers pass before us in such 
 bewildering succession. Now it is Richelieu to 
 whom she plays the role of the last of his mis- 
 tresses ; and now she flies from the Church to 
 the arms of Mars, when the great Conde comes as 
 suppHant to her feet. But Cond6, great soldier that 
 he was, was but a poor lover, and she reproaches 
 him for his cold and clumsy wooing by assuring 
 him that "it requires far more genius to make 
 love than command armies." 
 
 That the Due de Noailles, who succeeded the 
 
346 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " god of war," proved equally unsatisfactory the 
 following story proves. One day Ninon, bored 
 with her own company, invited him to supper h 
 deux, and when the feast was over conducted him 
 to a guest-chamber. No sooner, however, was the 
 Due's head on the pillow than he instantly forgot 
 all about his charming hostess in a deep slumber, 
 from which he never awoke until late the following 
 morning, when his door was flung noiselessly open 
 and his still sleepy eyes fell on a gaily dressed 
 cavalier. " Ah, sir," he exclaimed, as he sat 
 hurriedly up in bed, " I am a man of honour ; I 
 will give you satisfaction." And it was only when 
 Ninon's mocking laughter rippled out that he 
 recognised in the intruder the lady whose vanity 
 he had so outraged. Needless to say, that was 
 the last time the laggard Due was Madame's 
 guest. 
 
 Thus the lovers followed each other — ^the hand- 
 some and careless d'Andelot, who, of them all, had 
 the audacity to leave her before she gave him his 
 cong^,ih.v& making a deadly enemy of her ; Miossens, 
 whose involved speech and ponderous attempts 
 at love-making so puzzled her that she declared 
 Hfe was too short to understand him ; Fourreau 
 and Moreau, among, the wealthy and dull gallants 
 whom she called " payers " ; and the Marquis des 
 Yvetaux, gayest and most incorrigible of rou6s, 
 who, it is said, died to the music of a saraband, with 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 347 
 
 a ribbon she had worn in her hair clasped to his 
 heart. 
 
 There was, it is true, one gallant, the Marquis 
 de Villarceaux, who, to the amazement of the world 
 and her own, retained her favour for three years. 
 " Such constancy," she wrote, " really alarms me. 
 Is it possible that some day I shall settle down to 
 the dull decorum of wedded Ufe ? Never ! I am 
 wedded to liberty ; and no other's bride will I ever 
 be ! " She even left her beloved Paris to spend 
 idylUc months in the country with Villarceaux ; 
 and when at last, thinking it was time to bring this 
 chapter to a close, she left him and returned to the 
 capital, he followed quickly, and installed himself 
 in a house opposite hers, from which he kept a 
 jealous watch on her movements. Once, it is said, 
 seeing her rooms ahght long after midnight, he 
 concluded that she had already replaced him, and 
 he was so distracted by the thought that, before 
 rushing across the road to satisfy himself, he 
 jammed on his head, in place of a hat, a silver 
 ewer, from which he had the utmost difficulty 
 in extricating himself. So touched was Ninon by 
 this ludicrous evidence of devotion that she took 
 him into favour again — ^for a week. 
 
 Thus the gay, careless years passed for Ninon 
 de Lenclos, years of unbridled pursuit of pleasure, 
 in which she changed her lovers as hghtly as her 
 gowns, and, while revelling in the conquest of men, 
 
348 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 enjoyed at least as much the discomfiture of her 
 rivals . Of her own sex, this epitome of all its charm 
 and frailties never concealed her contempt. " A 
 woman's resistance," she would proclaim to her 
 masculine court, "is no proof of her virtue ; it is 
 rather an evidence of her experience. If we were 
 to speak truly we should have to confess that our 
 first impulse is to yield — ^it is only on reflection 
 that we resist." " I tell you, and I speak for all 
 women, that there are times when they would rather 
 be treated rudely than with too much respect. 
 Men lose more conquests by their own awkwardness 
 than by any virtue in the woman." Such are two 
 of the many indictments of her sex pronounced by 
 this woman, who at least illustrated them in her 
 own person, however false they are when directed 
 at her sex generally. 
 
 When Ninon had passed her fiftieth birthday she 
 seems to have been at the zenith of her career of 
 pleasure ; and it is of this period, when her own 
 sons had long entered the arena of love, that the 
 following story is told. Among the many gallants 
 who flocked to her salon was the Chevalier de 
 Villars, a handsome young man, who was quick 
 to succumb to the fascination of his middle-aged 
 hostess. He made passionate love to her, vowed 
 that he could not live without her affection ; and 
 the more coldly she received his advances the more 
 desperate became his pleading. 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 349 
 
 Ninon was in despair. Never was woman placed 
 in so cruel a position. In her distress she sent for 
 the ChevaUer de Jarsay, and asked him, with tears 
 streaming down her cheeks, " Must I tell him who 
 he is ? " The ChevaUer saw no other escape from 
 the dilemma. A few hours later, when her youth- 
 ful lover was again at her feet beseeching her to 
 take pity on him, she placed her hand on his head 
 and gasped out, " Hush ! oh, hush ! I am your 
 mother." The Chevalier rose from his knees, fixed 
 his eyes on her with a look of unutterable horror 
 and pain, and then rushed from the room. A 
 minute later a shot rang out. Ninon's boy-lover 
 was dead. 
 
 To her charming little house in the rue des 
 Tournelles, with its boudoir decorated with cupids ; 
 its salon with its gorgeous painted ceiling, on which 
 the Sun King masqueraded as Apollo, and its rose- 
 bowered garden, the fashionable world of Paris 
 flocked to pay homage to this Queen of Enchant- 
 ments, to listen entranced to her lute-plajdng, and 
 to be dazzled by the sparkle of her wit. Queen 
 Christina, Sweden's vagrant and erratic Queen, was 
 among her most ardent admirers, and declared 
 there was no lady in France to be compared with 
 her ; and Madame de Sevigne was proud to attend 
 her Court, although Ninon counted both her 
 husband and her son among her lovers. She in- 
 spired Mohere and Boileau to their greatest 
 
350 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 efforts ; pitted her wit against Rochefoucauld and 
 eclipsed his cleverest epigrams ; while Saint Evr6- 
 mond, who was her close friend and champion to 
 his last day, was her very slave. 
 
 It was Saint Evremond who wrote to her, when 
 she had passed her sixtieth birthday, " You were 
 born to be loved all your life. You have been 
 loved by the best men in the world, and you have 
 loved them just long enough to leave nothing in 
 the way of passion untasted, and so wisely as to 
 avoid any of the lassitudes of a waning love. ' ' And 
 it was to Evremond that she exhibited all that was 
 best in her character — ^her capacity for true friend- 
 ship, the noblest thoughts and aspirations, the 
 essential goodness of her heart. 
 
 Even when old age had robbed her of all vestige 
 of beauty she lost none of her desire and little of 
 her power to charm. " Cupid," to quote the Abbe 
 ChauUeu, " had retreated into the little wrinkles 
 round her eyes " ; but he was there, and as dis- 
 posed to mischief as when, more than sixty years 
 earlier, he first sped her arrows of conquest . On the 
 verge of eighty Ninon was still practising her arts 
 of coquetry, and receiving the homage of admirers 
 young enough to be her grandsons. One of them, 
 it is said, she kept waiting for her smile of approval 
 until a certain day, " because it was her eightieth 
 birthday, and she wanted to boast of having a new 
 lover on it." 
 
AN ENCHANTER OF MEN 351 
 
 Thus she coquetted with love almost to the very 
 brink of the grave ; and it was only when Death's 
 hand was beckoning to her that she said, a little 
 wearily, " I am tired — ^tired of always doing the 
 same thing." But even death had no terrors for 
 the old woman of the ever-young and brave heart, 
 who could say, with a smile on her face and with 
 her last breath, " How sweet it will be to talk with 
 all my old friends — ^there ! " 
 
CHAPTER XXVII 
 
 A QUEEN OF SPAIN 
 
 Few queens have made their entry into the world 
 under circumstances so dramatic as the second 
 Isabella of Spain. Outside the royal palace was 
 gathered a dense crowd, all eyes watching for the 
 hoisting of the flag, all ears alert for the boom of 
 the cannon that would announce the birth of an 
 heir to the throne. In the Queen's ante-chamber, 
 " high-ceilinged, wall-painted, wax-floored," were 
 all the great officers of State and of the household, 
 and the ambassadors of foreign powers ; while to 
 and fro among them paced the King, Fernando 
 VII., with pale face and thin, quivering Ups, in a 
 fever of ill-suppressed anxiety, for on the next few 
 minutes mighty issues hung for his country. 
 
 Would the coming child be a boy or a girl ?— 
 was the question that filled every mind, inside and 
 outside the palace, with anxiety and even terror ; 
 for, if the latter, beyond a doubt the fire of civil 
 war would soon be raging from one end of Spain to 
 the other, in support of the claims of the King's 
 younger brother, Don Carlos, regardless of the fact 
 that Fernando had abolished the Sahc Law and thus 
 made the way clear to the throne for a daughter. 
 
 352 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 353 
 
 Suddenly and softly the closed door of the Queen's 
 chamber opened, " to show a resplendently dressed 
 and buxom midwife standing on the threshold, a 
 figure that represented Fate ; for on her words 
 would hang the weal or woe of a nation. In an 
 instant the King stepped forward ; then, breathless, 
 his pallor deepening, he paused, unable to speak. 
 In another instant the woman had announced to 
 him the birth of a princess. A low, scarcely ex- 
 pressed but irresistible murmur of triumph rose 
 from his brother's adherents as his Majesty passed 
 into the Queen's room, to return presently bearing 
 on a golden platter the new-bom wailing morsel 
 of humanity, which he presented to all assembled." 
 
 A few days later Don Carlos was proclaimed 
 King, and for seven terrible years Spain was soaked 
 in blood and devastated by fire, until at last the 
 leaders of the rival armies, weary of slaughter, 
 brought the war to an end by the amiable expedient 
 of throwing dice for victory ! 
 
 Such was the tragedy that brooded over the 
 cradle of the infant Isabella, and clouded the early 
 years of her life. Nor was this all ; for within 
 three years of her birth her father died ; and her 
 mother, Cristina, now appointed Regent to the child- 
 Queen, chose for second husband a handsome young 
 private of the Guards, one Fernando Munoz, 
 keeping her marriage secret and even stoutly deny- 
 ing it that she might enjoy the power and fat 
 
354 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 revenues of her office as virtual ruler of the 
 kingdom. 
 
 Over the years that followed, with their swift 
 changes of government and their sordid story of 
 intrigues, bribery, fraud and corruption of every 
 kind, we must pass to the year 1845, when the 
 question of Isabella's marriage became a subject 
 of intense interest to her subjects and of grave 
 concern to the powers of Europe. Although the 
 young Queen had still to see her sixteenth birthday, 
 she was physically a woman. " She was," we are 
 told, " tall for her age, plump and vigorous ; her 
 face round, inclined to stoutness, with an expres- 
 sion of good nature and indolence ; the eyes dark 
 and flashing, the lips full and red." Her voice was 
 sweet ; she could be very dignified on occasions 
 of ceremony ; but her usual manner was hoydenish, 
 impulsive and full of fun, and she loved pleasure 
 almost as much as she hated restraint. Altogether 
 she was wholly unfitted for the incredibly difficult 
 position in which Fate had placed her. 
 
 Never was the hand of a queen the object of more 
 scheming or more international jealousy. France 
 and England, Austria and Spain, all produced 
 claimants, each of whom was vigorously opposed by 
 the rival nations ; and Cristina, the Queen Mother, 
 actually brought forward her own brother, Comte 
 Trapani, but neither Austria nor Spain would hear 
 of him. Isabella herself favoured her cousin, Don 
 
1 3 
 
 J&a^'Mly Il.z2^/£^?2y^^:^i 
 
 '^1^1^. 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 355 
 
 Enrique, second son of the late King's youngest 
 brother ; but her mother refused even to consider 
 him as son-in-law. 
 
 It was Cristina who finally resolved this tangle 
 of rival ambitions and jealousies by proclaiming 
 the engagement of Isabel to Don Enrique's elder 
 brother, Don Francisco de Assisi, in defiance of 
 the powers of Europe and of the fact that, of all 
 her would-be suitors, Isabella dishked him the 
 most. Nor is the reason for her dislike, her 
 contempt even, far to seek ; for Don Francisco 
 was the last man in Spain to inspire love or respect 
 in any girl. 
 
 Small and slight in person, his features were 
 insignificant, his voice a high falsetto, his manners 
 inane, though amiable, and his character lacka- 
 daisical and colourless. His chief object in life 
 was the decoration of his insignificant person, 
 which he loved to load with tawdry jewellery ; his 
 chief hobby was the writing of sentimental verses. 
 " When he appeared at Court," Mr MoUoy says, 
 " his simpering ways — ^heels together, hands folded, 
 head held on one side — were a butt for the ridicule 
 of the bouncing, free-spoken Isabel, an object of 
 laughter to the maids of honour. Her Majesty's 
 imitation of his mincing walk brought her circle 
 to the borders of hysteria." 
 
 Such was the gilded manikin who, one October 
 day in 1846, stood at the altar with his Queen-bride 
 
356 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 in the Salon des Columnas of the royal palace 
 of Madrid, gorgeous with its canopied throne in 
 crimson and gold, its enormous chandeUers of rock- 
 crystal, its frescoed walls, immense mirrors, marble 
 busts and golden candelabra — ^illuminated by a 
 thousand candles, which brought into conspicuous- 
 ness the scarlet and gold of Court costumes and 
 military uniforms, the brilUance of jewelled orders 
 and superb coronets, the grandees of Spain, the 
 ladies and great officers of the palace, the ministers 
 and presidents of the legislative bodies, the diplo- 
 matic corps, deputies and senators. 
 
 Two days previously the bridegroom had been 
 made a Field-Marshal-General of Spain ; and into 
 the gorgeous uniform of this rank, with padded 
 chest and shoulders and buUioned embroidery, his 
 puny body had been packed, while round his neck 
 hung the insignia of the Golden Fleece and the 
 Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour. When at 
 last the fateful words had been spoken and Isabella, 
 pale-faced and mutinous, had promised to " love, 
 honour and obey " the feeble caricature of a man 
 beside her, he rushed from the altar and flung 
 himself sobbing into his father's arms. 
 
 For such a bride, high-spirited and rebellious, 
 with her mother's hot passions in her veins, united 
 to a man whom she despised from the bottom of her 
 heart, there could be small prospect of wedded 
 happiness or of fidelity. And before her honey- 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 357 
 
 moon had well waned, there was much secret 
 whispering and smiUng at Court over the Queen's 
 partiality for another Don Francisco, not her 
 husband— none other than Don Francisco y 
 Dominguez, the handsomest man, and also the most 
 accomphshed rou6 in Spain. Before she became a 
 wife, Isabella had shown marked favour to her 
 " beloved general " ; now that she was allied, 
 against her will, to a hateful husband, she flung 
 away all restraint, all decency, and conducted her 
 amour openly in the face of her Court. 
 
 So flagrant, in fact, was her conduct that the 
 Queen-Mother, finding remonstrance useless, quitted 
 Madrid, to show her displeasure, taking with her 
 her Guardsman-husband, now made Due de 
 Rianzares, and the children she had borne to him. 
 Isabella's consort, too weak to interfere, too 
 humihated to endure, retired to his shooting- 
 box. El Pardo, leaving his Queen free to set an 
 example of licence which her Court was quick to 
 follow. 
 
 But there was still the nation to reckon with ; 
 and when General Narvaez was recalled from his 
 exile to take the helm of state his first act was to 
 request the Queen to banish her lover, unless she 
 was prepared to sacrifice her crown. To this 
 request, thus enforced, Isabella at last consented ; 
 and Don Francisco was packed off, not unwilUngly, 
 to an estate in Estremadura, the Queen's parting 
 
358 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 present to him, and to new and important duties 
 as Captain-General of Granada. 
 
 To Isabel the loss of a lover more or less mattered 
 little ; for she soon wearied of them all in turn, and 
 there was never any lack of successors. " I said," 
 Lord Canning wrote in 1847, " there was no 
 apparent successor to Don Francisco y Dominguez ; 
 but we shall not have long to wait . The day before 
 yesterday a singer at the opera came home to his 
 lodgings at six o'clock in the morning and found 
 them occupied by the police, who had a carriage 
 ready to take him off to Valencia, the reason being 
 that his night had been passed at the palace. To 
 say the truth, this appears to me rather hard ; for 
 nothing is deducible from the hour at which he left 
 the palace, inasmuch as the Queen turns night into 
 day, sees the ministers after the opera, and does 
 not go to bed until morning." 
 
 It was an easier matter to carry off a too amorous 
 opera singer than to deal with Isabel's more highly 
 placed lovers, of whom Colonel Gandara was soon 
 installed in chief favour. In fact the Court became 
 such a hotbed of scandal that Narvaez, in despair, 
 summoned the King from his sonnet -writing at El 
 Pardo to take his proper place as consort and thus 
 restore at least the semblance of respectability to 
 his Queen. At the same time Narvaez dismissed 
 as many as possible of her gallants and put a stop 
 to the midnight audiences which she had begun 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 359 
 
 to give in her bedchamber to privileged ministers 
 and Court officials. 
 
 In spite of her moral laxity, however, Isabel did 
 not lack qualities which won some popularity with 
 her subjects ; even her amours they were disposed 
 to condone, so frankly were they carried on and so 
 detested was the husband to whom her mother's 
 headstrong will had tied her. That she had a good 
 heart, if a foolish head, abundant stories prove. 
 Thus when her carriage passed a priest and his 
 acolyte, trudging their slow way to administer the 
 last Sacrament to the dying, she never hesitated 
 to give up her place to the bearers of consolation. 
 She would then follow on foot into the most 
 wretched slums, climb narrow stairways to the 
 miserable garrets, and kneel on the bare boards 
 during the ceremonies. On other occasions she 
 was often seen kneeling for hours in the gloom of 
 one or other of the churches, bewailing her sins 
 with bitter sobs, confessing them and undertaking 
 penances for them. 
 
 A few days later, so weak was the flesh, she was 
 plunging more recklessly than ever into the whirl 
 of gaieties and indiscretions, changing her lovers 
 with bewildering rapidity, coquetting now with 
 dukes and high officials, now with actors and 
 private soldiers, until her conduct at last filled 
 ministers and people alike with disgust. So strong 
 was the popular resentment at such unqueenly 
 
360 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 doings that when, in January 1854, Isabel gave 
 birth at last to a son (her third child) the event 
 passed almost without notice or comment. The 
 Press treated it with contemptuous indifference. 
 " The bulletins of the physicians," we read, " axe 
 put in, not at the head of the newspaper, but 
 amongst the indifferent news, without remark or 
 comment." 
 
 A few months later the long-pent-up mutiny 
 against such a disgraceful state of things burst all 
 barriers. One June day in 1854 the whole popula- 
 tion of Madrid rose as one man, rushing through the 
 streets with cries of " Death to the Queen ! Death 
 to Cristina ! Death to the Favourites ! Long live 
 Liberty ! " High pyres were built and set aflame 
 before the Government offices and the ministers' 
 houses. The royal palace was stormed by in- 
 furiated mobs, the very women flinging themselves 
 on the bayonets of the guards. Pictures, statues 
 and furniture, gold and silver plate were thrown 
 out of the windows ; and when the palace was a 
 complete wreck it was set on fire. 
 
 For days and nights terror and confusion reigned 
 through the city. Every street had its barricades, 
 every square was a battlefield ; Madrid was in 
 flames at every point of the compass. " The heat, 
 dust and uproar in these sultry summer days, the 
 crowds of furious men and still more furious women, 
 their faces blackened with smoke and distorted 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 361 
 
 by passion ; the smell of blood, the sight of bodies 
 torn by shot or stark in death, made the city seem 
 like an inferno." 
 
 When Isabel, who was enjoying herself at her 
 La Granja palace, heard of the revolution, she 
 returned post-haste to Madrid, to find herself 
 greeted by scowling faces and cries of " Death ! " 
 and " Liberty ! " ; to see the finest buildings of her 
 capital reduced to blackened shells, its streets 
 strewn with the dead and dying ; and everywhere 
 armed mobs drunk with blood and victory. It was 
 not, however, against her, but against her corrupt 
 Prime Minister, San Luis, and her mother, Cristina, 
 that the anger of the populace was fiercest. San 
 Luis had escaped their fury, and, disguised as a 
 valet, with shaven face and dyed hair, was already 
 well on his way across the Pyrenees ; but Cristina 
 still remained, and every moment her life was in 
 danger. 
 
 Isabel's first act was to summon to her aid 
 Espartero, the one strong man among her subjects 
 who could restore order, and who was now living in 
 retirement in the province of Aragon ; and a few 
 days later General Salazar, a sturdy, plain-spoken 
 soldier, appeared with a letter from Espartero 
 saying that he could only return to Madrid on con- 
 dition that the Queen should dismiss her entire 
 household. When Isabel indignantly refused to 
 agree to the condition, the general took the liberty 
 
862 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to give her a lecture on the immorahties of her 
 Court, " which were the shame of the nation." 
 " I do not know what you mean," she retorted 
 haughtily. " How dare you speak to me in this 
 way ? No one has ever so dared before." " That 
 I can quite beheve, Madam," was the blunt 
 answer ; "for it is not often that truths are 
 spoken in a palace." 
 
 In vain Isabel wept and stormed and threatened. 
 She declared that she would abdicate and leave 
 Madrid in the morning rather than do what 
 Espartero demanded. The general was adamant ; 
 and when at last he left, he took with him a letter 
 for Espartero agreeing to his terms. A new 
 Cabinet was formed ; the household, from the 
 Mistress of the Robes to the meanest scuUion, was 
 dismissed ; and, a few days later, Cristina, haughty 
 and defiant to the last, was smuggled out of Madrid 
 to safety in Portugal, where she was joined by her 
 soldier-husband, now a grandee of Spain. 
 
 Thus peace was restored ; but for Isabel there 
 was no peace. " The cause from her birth to the 
 last day of her reign of civil war, revolutions, 
 bloodshed, cruelty and incalculable misery to her 
 people, it is no wonder that their loyalty turned to 
 hate, their pity to scorn. Finally they flung her 
 from the throne, in 1868, after a reign of twenty- 
 five years of wretchedness and degradation to the 
 nation." 
 
A QUEEN OF SPAIN 368 
 
 With peace re-established, she lost no time in 
 resuming her life of pleasure, and was soon flaunting 
 another disgraceful amour in the face of her sub- 
 jects. This time her favourite was Carlos Marfori, 
 son of an Italian cook, who from strolUng player had 
 risen to be Governor of Madrid and Chief of the 
 Royal Household,in which characters the Queen had 
 abundant opportunities of losing her middle-aged 
 heart to him. She loaded him with honours and 
 riches, made a Marquis of him, and gave him the 
 place of honour by her side at State ceremonials, 
 and whenever she drove through the streets of 
 her capital, until, " swollen with insolent pride, 
 he strutted about the royal apartments with the 
 dignified bearing of one accustomed to palaces of 
 painted canvas, his manner marked by the sweeping 
 command of monarchs crowned with pasteboard." 
 
 The end of Isabel's inglorious reign came at last 
 with dramatic suddenness. In April 1868 the 
 province of Catalonia rose in insurrection ; and 
 the rebelUon spread quickly over the whole face of 
 Spain. Isabel was summoned to Madrid from San 
 Sebastian, where she was spending a few weeks 
 with her husband and her lover, but was warned 
 that she must not bring Marfori with her, a con- 
 dition which she flatlyrefused to obey. " I remain 
 at San Sebastian," she telegraphed to her Prime 
 Minister, General Concha, "and shall continue to 
 remain until these brigands are conquered. Should 
 
364 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 they succeed, I shall withdraw to France, delighted 
 at having rid myself of a nation of thieves and 
 assassins." 
 
 She remained thus defiant until news came to 
 her that the last troops who remained loyal had 
 been defeated ; and then she realised that it was 
 too late to return, that she had lost the throne, and 
 that her only safety lay in flight. Early in the 
 morning of 30th September 1868, the special train 
 that was to take her to exile was awaiting her. 
 " The spectacle she presented," Mr MoUoy says, 
 " was too pitiable for comedy. With her round, 
 heavy face swollen from sleeplessness and tears, 
 surmounted by a little straw hat with a nodding 
 red feather, with her dress in disorder, her hands 
 without gloves, her skirts distended by a swinging 
 crinohne, she reached the station." 
 
 By her side walked the King-consort, a pathetic 
 picture of melancholy and resignation ; and behind 
 strutted Marfori, the lover, with the swaggering 
 air of a hero of melodrama. No sooner had they 
 and the suite taken their places than the train 
 " fled with a shriek from the station," on its race 
 to France, and the unknown future which for Isabel 
 was to close, thirty-six years later, with death at 
 the Palais de Castile, in Paris. 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII 
 
 A PRODIGAL DUKE 
 
 There were few thorns in the rose-bed of Louis 
 de Bourbon, known to fame as the " great Conde," 
 the most brilliant soldier of his day, and the saviour 
 of his country ; but the most troublesome of them 
 was, without doubt, his disappointment in his only 
 son, the Due d'Enghien. 
 
 As a child Monsieur le Due gave every promise 
 of being a son worthy even of his distinguished 
 father, for he was dowered with rare gifts and 
 graces ; but as he grew to manhood there was no 
 gift which he did not turn to base uses, no grace 
 which he did not prostitute to his love of pleasure. 
 
 Saint-Simon describes him as a little man, very 
 thin and slenderly made, whose countenance,though 
 somewhat mean, was still imposing from the fire 
 and intelligence of his eyes. Few men in France 
 had so keen and varied an intelligence^ so many 
 accomplishments, so much tact, grace and charm. 
 But no man had ever before so many useless talents, 
 so much futile genius, or so lively and active an 
 imagination solely employed to be his own curse and 
 the scourge of others. He was a prey to jealousy 
 and suspicion ; he was choleric and headstrong ; 
 365 
 
366 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 now haughty and autocratic, now abjectly servile, 
 even to lackeys, never scruphng to use the lowest 
 means to gain his own ends. " Unnatural son, 
 cruel father, terrible husband, detestable master, 
 pernicious neighbour," such is Saint -Simon's scath- 
 ing description of this heir to the great Conde ; 
 and yet with all this he had such a power of charm 
 that few could resist him when he chose to exercise 
 it. 
 
 To his wife, Anne of Bavaria, " ugly, virtuous 
 and stupid, a little deformed, and not very clean 
 in her person," the Due was a veritable tyrant, who 
 found an almost fiendish pleasure in torturing and 
 humiliating her. Slavishly devoted to him, minis- 
 tering to his comfort, and submitting to him in all 
 things, her reward was hourly insults, even blows 
 and kicks. For her to propose anything, however 
 trivial, was for him to oppose it. 
 
 He would order her to start on a journey ; and 
 no sooner was she seated in her carriage than he 
 would drag her out of it, and order her to delay her 
 journey until the next day and the next, when he 
 would repeat the performance. " At other times 
 he would summon her from church, and make her 
 leave High Mass ; and sometimes would even send 
 for her when she was on the point of receiving the 
 Communion, and she would be obliged to return on 
 the instant, and defer her Communion until another 
 occasion." "This he did," we are told, "not 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 367 
 
 because he wanted her, but merely to gratify his 
 whim." 
 
 Of the Due's eccentricities even in his earUer 
 years many stories are told. So uncertain, for 
 example, were his movements that every day he 
 had four dinners prepared for him at widely 
 separated points of the compass — at Paris, Ecouen, 
 Chantilly, and wherever the Court might chance to 
 be ; so that, in whatever direction he chose to travel, 
 he might be assured of a meal. And his dinner, 
 which he almost invariably ate in solitude, was 
 always the same — a modest meal of soup and half- 
 a-chicken, the other half being carefully kept for 
 the following day's dinner. He had, too, a perfect 
 passion for practical jokes, of which the following 
 is a sample. 
 
 The Due de Luxembourg, a simple-minded noble, 
 had for wife a young and charming woman whose 
 smiles and favours were, it is said, for any man 
 rather than her husband. When he and his lady 
 were once invited to take part in a masquerade at 
 Court, Monsieur le Due very politely offered to 
 provide Monsieur de Luxembourg with a costume 
 which, he assured him, would eclipse all others in 
 its striking originality. " Thereupon " — ^to quote 
 Mr N. Williams — " the malicious Prince proceeded 
 to array his unconscious victim in various fantastic 
 garments, which he crowned with a gigantic pair 
 of antlers, which almost touched the candelabra. 
 
368 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " Thus attired, he was conducted into the ball- 
 room, where, by a sudden lifting of the mask, his 
 identity was revealed. When the company per- 
 ceived who it was who was thus parading the 
 emblem of a deceived husband a great shout of 
 laughter rang through the room, which redoubled 
 when the luckless Luxembourg, mistaking the 
 hilarity which his appearance aroused for a tribute 
 to the originality of his costume, bowed repeatedly. ' ' 
 
 When the Prince was not engaged in tormenting 
 his long-suffering wife, in practical jokes, often 
 heartless, or in long, mysterious journeys, he was 
 still more agreeably employed in playing the role 
 of Don Juan, in which, in spite of " a shape which 
 resembled a gnome rather than a man," and a face 
 almost repulsive in its ugliness, he was as successful 
 as the handsomest Lothario at Louis' court. What 
 he lacked in physical advantages he gained in a 
 supple tongue, his courtly arts and graces, and a 
 strange personal magnetism against which the most 
 beautiful and coy of women seemed powerless. 
 " Now," says Saint -Simon, " he disguised himself 
 as a lackey ; another time as a female vendor of 
 articles for the toilet ; anon, in some other fashion. 
 He was the most ingenious man in the world." 
 
 Among the many great ladies who smiled on the 
 " ugly Prince's " wooing there was none more fair 
 than the Duchesse de Nevers, niece of Louis XIV. 's 
 famous mistress, Madame de Montespan. There 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 369 
 
 was, in fact, no more beautiful woman in France 
 than the supremely fascinating Gabrielle de 
 Thianges, who had been led from the schoolroom 
 to the altar by Mazarin's nephew, and who retained 
 her charms undimmed to the last day of her sixty 
 years of life. Louis himself had succumbed at sight 
 of her radiant loveliness ; and, but for Mazarin's 
 intervention, she might have shared his throne. 
 
 Such was the woman who, when the dwarfish and 
 ill-favoured Due d'Enghien came a-wooing her, 
 had no power to resist him. She was as hopelessly 
 infatuated with him as he with her ; and the lovers 
 conducted their liaison with such skill and secrecy 
 that many months passed before the suspicion of 
 the lady's husband was aroused. Indeed, so cleverly 
 were the meetings arranged that a much more wide-- 
 awake husband than the Due de Nevers might well 
 have been deceived. According to Madame Caylus, 
 the Prince (the Due d'Enghien was of the blood 
 royal, cousin to the King), in order to gain access to 
 his lady, purchased two houses, one on each side of 
 the Nevers hotel. Saint-Simon declares that " he 
 rented all the houses on the same side of the street, 
 furnished them, and pierced the connecting walls." 
 Whatever the truth may be, there is no doubt that 
 by some such means of secret access the lovers were 
 able to meet daily without any but themselves 
 being any the wiser. 
 
 But such clandestine love-making was not always 
 
 2A 
 
370 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to remain undiscovered. The husband's suspicion 
 was at last aroused that Madame was not as discreet 
 in her conduct as a wife ought to be, and he decided 
 to carry her off to Rome. There was Uttle that was 
 alarming to the Duchesse in such an announcement, 
 for the Due was in the habit of starting on such 
 lengthy journeys at a moment's notice. He would, 
 Madame de Caylus tells us, " set off for Rome in the 
 same way as anyone else would go out to supper ; 
 and Madame de Nevers had been known to enter 
 her carriage in the persuasion that she was merely 
 going for a drive, and then to hear her husband say 
 to the coachman, ' To Rome.' " 
 
 This time, however, suspecting the Due's motive, 
 she warned her lover and begged him to devise some 
 means to avert the separation, a suggestion which 
 was in every way after the Prince's heart. To his 
 fertile brain the problem presented little difficulty, 
 and he discovered the key to it in the Due de Nevers' 
 passion for verse-making, of which he was very vain. 
 To Monsieur de Nevers he accordingly went with 
 the news that he was organising a grand f^te in 
 honour of the Dauphin, and begged him as a great 
 favour to write the words of the divertissement, 
 which he declared no other poet could do so grace- 
 fully and well. This was a bait which de Nevers 
 could not resist . He undertook the duty so flatter- 
 ingly proffered ; the journey to Rome was post- 
 poned indefinitely ; and the Prince and his lady 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 371 
 
 were left to continue their love-making undisturbed. 
 That the f6te which had purchased this privilege 
 cost one hundred thousand crowns was a mere 
 bagatelle to a prince who was prepared to squander 
 millions in his pursuit of pleasure. 
 
 Indeed, he is said to have lavished millions on 
 one alone of his many mistresses, the Marquise 
 de Richelieu, the beautiful daughter of the Due de 
 Mazaiin and Hortense Mancini, the Cardinal's 
 loveliest and favourite niece. According to Saint- 
 Simon, the Prince fell madly in love with this siren 
 and spent millions upon her, and to keep himself 
 informed of her movements. But the stream of his 
 wooing did not long flow smoothly. One day he 
 discovered, to his great indignation and dismay, that 
 he had a dangerous rival in the Comte de Roucy, 
 one of the handsomest Lotharios in France. When 
 he reproached the Marquise with her treachery 
 she assured him with tears that he cruelly mis- 
 judged her ; and when the reports of his spies es- 
 tablished the truth of the charge beyond all denial 
 she swore that de Roucy was nothing to her ; that 
 her heart was entirely the Prince's, and that she 
 would never see his rival again. 
 
 To all her pleadings and vows the Prince turned 
 a deaf ear. She must go to her lover, he declared ; 
 as for himself, he would never see her again. Then, 
 in her extremity, the Marchioness conceived a 
 diabolical plan to end the matter. She proposed 
 
372 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 to invite de Roucy to her hoiise, that some of the 
 Prince's people should lie in wait, and when the 
 Count appeared should make away with him. Thus 
 callously she proposed that one lover should be 
 murdered in order to appease the jealousy of the 
 other. But Monsieur le Due, unscrupulous as he 
 was in his wooing, drew the line at assassination. 
 He was, in fact, so horrified at the suggestion that 
 he himself warned de Roucy of the design on his 
 life ; and from that day never saw Madame de 
 Richelieu again. 
 
 Proud as the Due d'Enghien was of his many 
 conquests in love, his greatest triumph was his 
 conquest of the widowed Comtesse de Maran, a 
 lady of great beauty who, according to Madame 
 de Sevigne, had been heard to declare that she 
 would rather die than surrender herself to a man 
 whom she loved ; but if a man loved her, and she 
 did not find him altogether odious, she would be 
 wilUng to yield. That when the Due d'Enghien 
 came to swell the legion of her wooers she did not 
 find him too odious we know from the fact that she 
 became the mother of his daughter, a girl who grew 
 to a beauty and a frailness as great as hers. When 
 she found a husband in a wealthy widower, the 
 Marquis de Lassay, she proved herself a worthy 
 daughter of her parents by providing herself with 
 a lover before the first week of her honeymoon had 
 passed. 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 378 
 
 Of the nine children which Anne of Bavaria bore 
 to her pleasure-loving husband, one son only 
 reached manhood — Louis, Due de Bourbon, who 
 was, in all ways, a true son of his father, dwarfish, 
 pretematurally ugly, " with an abnormally large 
 head, an unwholesome complexion, and a surly 
 expression." But, ill-favoured as lie was, he found 
 a bride while still a boy in Mademoiselle de Nantes, 
 the twelve-year-old daughter of Louis XIV. and 
 Madame de Montespan. 
 
 To his unattractive exterior the Due de Bourbon 
 allied his father's violent temper and his passion for 
 practical jokes, of which some remarkable stories 
 are told. On one occasion, when one of his guests, 
 the Comte de Fiesque, was getting the better of him 
 in an argument, the Due sprang to his feet in a 
 violent rage. Seizing a plate he hurled it at the 
 Count's head, and crowned this outrage by the 
 indignity of ordering his servants to turn him out 
 of the house at midnight. On another occasion, 
 when he discovered that his friend the Marquis de 
 Termes had reported one of his escapades to the 
 King, he sent several of his servants to waylay the 
 informer, armed with stout canes, to administer 
 a thrashing so merciless that the unhappy marquis 
 was confined to his bed for some weeks. Of his 
 practical jokes one at least had a fatal sequel, when 
 he offered a glass of champagne to the poet Santeuil, 
 into which he had emptied his snuff-box. 
 
374 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Of the Due de Bourbon's many mistresses — ^for 
 in his gallantry, as in all other respects, he was 
 his father's son — ^the most noted was the beautiful 
 Madame de Mussy, " a httle woman, exquisitely 
 shaped, with a dazzling complexion and ravishing 
 arms and neck," who was wedded to a staid and 
 elderly Dijon lawyer. So unsuspecting was the 
 councillor that the amorous Due had made a com- 
 plete conquest of his lady before he awoke to the 
 discovery that he had a rival. When his jealousy 
 found expression in violence, Madame was only too 
 glad of the excuse to leave his roof ; and she soon 
 found herself installed in a sumptuous house in 
 Paris as the avowed mistress of the Due de Bourbon, 
 and surrounded by a court little less brilliant than 
 that of her lover's cousin. King Louis himself. 
 
 Had Madame but been prudent she might have 
 enjoyed her life of luxury and pleasure for many 
 years, for the Due was her veriest slave ; but, 
 unfortunately, she fell under the spell of the Comte 
 d' Albert, the most notorious " lady killer " in 
 France, with whom she became hopelessly infatu- 
 ated. " Monsieur le Due, finding that she no 
 longer responded to his caresses with her accus- 
 tomed ardour, had her watched, and ere long dis- 
 covered the truth. His wrath was terrible, though 
 happily he contented himself by venting it on the 
 furniture, mirrors and porcelain of his perfidious 
 mistress, among which he raged with such fury that 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 375 
 
 in a few moments the apartment was strewn with 
 the wreckage of what had represented a consider- 
 able fortune." 
 
 Such was the son of Henri Jules, Due d'Enghien, 
 and grandson of the great Conde — ^hke his father 
 a degenerate, sacrificing to a life of pleasure and 
 self-indulgence gifts which, if allowed proper 
 exercise, might have made his name famous in 
 history. 
 
 As for the Due d'Enghien, when even pleasure 
 began to pall he retired to Chantilly, the country 
 home which his father's taste and wealth had con- 
 verted into a veritable fairyland. Here he devoted 
 himself and his vast fortune to making 'Chantilly 
 still more beautiful, the wonder-place of Europe ; 
 adding to its treasures of pictures, statuary and 
 objects of art, and making its gardens dreams of 
 beauty. 
 
 With the years his eccentricity became more and 
 more marked — so marked that it was scarcely dis- 
 tinguishable from madness. Saint-Simon tells us 
 that there were times when he imagined that he 
 was a dog. " People very worthy of beUef had 
 told him that they had seen the Prince on the rare 
 occasions when he left Chantilly to attend the King 
 at his lever and coucher, suddenly throw his head 
 into the air several times running, and open his 
 mouth wide, like a dog when barking, yet without 
 making a noise." 
 
376 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Once, too, he chanced to call on the Marechale de 
 Noailles at the moment when her bed was being 
 made and there remained only the counterpane to 
 put on. For a moment he paused at the door, and 
 then took a fljHlng leap on to the bed, calling out in 
 a transport of delight, " Oh ! le beau lit, le beau lit ! 
 qu'il est appetisant ! " To the Marechale, who 
 looked shocked at such astounding behaviour, he 
 explained, " Pardon, madam ! The bed looked so 
 beautiful and so clean that I could not resist the 
 temptation to roU on it." 
 
 During the last year of his life he became so care- 
 ful of his diet that he had all his food scrupulously 
 Weighed before he would touch it ; and when his 
 last illness seized him he refused point-blank to eat 
 at all, declaring that he was dead, and that " dead 
 men need no nourishment." In vain the doctors 
 remonstrated and argued. He was obdurate ; 
 until at last they hit on a happy expedient. They 
 decided to humour his delusion. He was dead, of 
 course, they said ; but it was quite a mistake to 
 imagine that for that reason he required no food. - 
 In order to convince him, they brought to his room 
 several men who simulated death, and yet were 
 able to enjoy a hearty meal. Such evidence as 
 this was not to be disputed, and the Prince at 
 last consented to join his fellow-corpses in their 
 banquet. 
 
 When the end drew near, his wife, still devoted to 
 
A PRODIGAL DUKE 377 
 
 him, begged him to see a priest, a request which he 
 angrily refused. No power on earth shoiild make 
 him see a confessor, he declared in answer to the 
 Duchesse's tears and pleadings. He had done very 
 well without one for many years, and he was not 
 going to see one now. The Duchesse little knew 
 that the man who thus scorned the consolations of 
 religion at the very portal of death had for weeks 
 been visited daily by a priest, Pere la Tour, whose 
 visits were so secretly arranged that no member of 
 his family even suspected them. 
 
 At first he had insisted that the father should 
 come to him in disguise ; and when the priest de- 
 cUned to masquerade as a layman the utmost pre- 
 cautions were taken to shroud his visits in secrecy. 
 He was admitted at dead of night by a back door 
 by a confidential servant, who led him through 
 a labyrinth of passages to the Prince's bedroom. 
 Each door, as it was passed, was carefully locked 
 behind him, and the return journey was conducted 
 with the same precautions and secrecy. 
 
 Thus deceitful to the last, died Henri Jules, Due 
 d'Enghien, one April day in 1709, " regretted by 
 none, neither by servants nor friends, neither by 
 child nor wife. Indeed Madame la Princesse," 
 Saint -Simon tells us, " was so ashamed of her tears 
 that she made excuses for them. ' ' Less than a year 
 later his prodigal son, the Due de Bourbon, was 
 seized with a fit as he was driving over the Pont 
 
378 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Royal, and died within a few hours at the 
 Hotel de Conde, leaving behind him as few 
 regrets as his father ; and, like him, the memory 
 of great gifts shamelessly prostituted to a passion 
 for pleasure ! 
 
CHAPTER XXIX 
 
 THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 
 
 When Fran9ois I. succeeded his uncle, the twelfth 
 Louis, on the throne of France, at the age of twenty, 
 he was as goodly a young man to look upon as any 
 who ever wore a crown. Handsome and strong, 
 with muscles well knit by practice in all knightly 
 and manly exercises, he had already won fame 
 for a courage in courting dangers from which most 
 brave men would shrink. 
 
 He had especially distinguished himself as a 
 daring huntsman. There was no boar or wolf 
 too savage for him to attack single-handed with 
 his sword, and many tales were told of his prowess 
 before he had left his school days behind him. One 
 day, one such story runs, " he had a huge wild boar 
 let loose in the courtyard of the castle of Amboise, 
 where he was living with his mother ; and when the 
 furious animal broke through a doorway, and ran 
 upstairs into the apartments, he attacked single- 
 handed and slew the great tusked beast as it 
 charged him on the staircase." 
 
 There was a wild, lawless strain in the blood of 
 this young Due de Valois, who was destined to be 
 a king ; for when he was not braving death in the 
 379 
 
380 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 chase he was never happier than when engaged 
 in fierce fights with his hot-blooded companions, 
 or playing ringleader in every kind of horseplay or 
 rough practical joke his ingenuity could devise, to 
 the constant terror of his mother and sister and to 
 the admiration of the wild spirits of the age. And 
 to this fierce, turbulent side of his character was 
 strangely alHed the passion for poetry and art 
 which in later years was to make him the father 
 and founder of the French Renaissance. 
 
 Such was the young Due who, as a boy, was 
 wedded to the insipid daughter of Louis XIL, 
 and who, shortly after his twentieth birthday, 
 succeeded him on the throne as Frangois I., to 
 the delight of his subjects, who expected great 
 things from a King of such proved courage and 
 character. 
 
 No sooner had Frangois mounted his throne than 
 he set to work to provide himself with the finest 
 horses, the best of arms, and for mistress the most 
 attractive and handsome young lady to be found in 
 France ; for these three pursuits — war, the chase 
 and love-^were his dominating passions to his last 
 day. Under the watchful eye of his mother he had 
 so far had little opportunity of love-making. The 
 wife who had been provided for him had no beauty 
 or charm to stir his pulses. Now that he was King, 
 his own master and the master of France, he was at 
 last free to love whom he would ; for there was no 
 
THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 381 
 
 lack of fair women among whom he could pick and 
 choose. 
 
 Nor was it long before his choice was made. 
 Secluded in an ancient chateau on the Chdre, he 
 heard, was a girl of remarkable beauty, a daughter 
 of the semi-royal family of Foix. As a child of 
 twelve, Franfoise, daughter of Phebus de Foix, 
 Vicomte de Lantrec, had been wedded to Jean de 
 Laval, Comte de Chateaubriand, a man older than 
 her own father, and the most jealous husband in 
 France. Here, in the grim, centuries-old fortress, 
 the Comte had for some years kept his lovely girl^ 
 wife secluded from the world, never suffering her 
 to leave the castle grounds ; while he, like many 
 another husband of the time, sought his pleasures 
 elsewhere. 
 
 Such was the treasure on which the new King 
 set his heart, the more resolute to win her as the 
 difficulties in his path seemed insuperable. To the 
 Comte himself Francois made his first overtures, 
 asking him why he did not bring his young wife, 
 of whose beauty he had heard so much, to Court. 
 " Sire," answered the Sieur de Laval, " my wife's 
 charms have been much exaggerated. She is 
 beautiful, it is true, but with the beauty and the 
 coldness of a marble statue ; she is positively stupid, 
 with no more brains than a snipe. She could not 
 possibly interest your Majesty ; in fact, she is really 
 not worth discussing." 
 
382 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 " None the less," persisted the King, " we should 
 like to see her and judge for ourselves. Besides, it 
 might brighten her wits to bring her out into the 
 world a little. Won't you send for her ? " " Ah, 
 Sire," protested Laval, " I assure you it is useless. 
 She adores the country and loathes the town. 
 She would inevitably pine away, and I do not 
 want her to incur this risk to her health." 
 
 Within an hour Laval, his jealousy roused by 
 the King's words, was spurring towards Nantes as 
 fast as his horse would carry him, to warn the fair 
 Fran^oise under no circumstances to leave the 
 chateau except on receipt of a secret sign which he 
 gave her, thus securing her, as he thought, against 
 any design of the King to lure her away in his 
 absence. But Francois was not so easily to be 
 thwarted. It was no difficult matter to learn the 
 sign by bribing a member of the Comte's house- 
 hold ; and one day, when her husband was at Court, 
 a band of gallants arrived at Chateaubriand armed 
 with the " open sesame " to which Frangoise was 
 only too glad to respond ; and she was carried 
 off to the Court a by no means unwilling 
 captive. 
 
 Here the released beauty had the most flattering 
 of receptions — ^from all save her husband, who, in 
 disgust at being outwitted, left the Court, declaring 
 that he " washed his hands of her " — a step which 
 was as foolish on his part as it was pleasing to 
 
THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 383 
 
 Frangoise, delighted with her first taste of liberty 
 under such pleasant conditions. So quick was 
 she in responding to the overtures of the hand- 
 some young King that within a week, we are 
 told, she had given herself up to him, body 
 and soul. 
 
 It was, indeed, a new and splendid world to which 
 the prisoner of the Chateaubriand found herself 
 transported, for she was treated as Queen not only 
 by Frangois, but by his entire Court. The King's 
 mother took the " pretty child " to her heart ; his 
 wife. Queen Claude, far from showing the jealousy 
 she must have felt, gave her the welcome of a 
 friend ; and Marguerite d'Angoul^me, Frangois's 
 sister, " made all kinds of elegant designs and 
 cunning mottoes, which were carried out in 
 beautiful articles of jewellery, to be given to the 
 brilliant young Countess, who soon enjoyed herself 
 thoroughly at Court, over which she shared the 
 influence of Marguerite." 
 
 As for the King, he was infatuated with his new 
 plaything. He lived only for her smiles ; he was 
 her shadow everywhere, and he surrounded her 
 with all the luxury money could purchase or art 
 devise. Her apartments were the most sumptuous 
 in the palace. Her bedroom, of his own designing, 
 was a wonder chamber of beauty, with its voluptu- 
 ous half-lights, its marvels of sculpture and furnish- 
 ing, and its bed, " surrounded by balustrades of 
 
384 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 carved wood, with mirrors, velvet hangings and 
 ebony seats." 
 
 Frangoise was now Queen of France in all but 
 name, with her place at the King's right hand at 
 banquets and fetes, in State processions, and even 
 in the council chamber. The greatest ladies at 
 Court remained standing in her presence ; the Court 
 gallants vied with each other in paying homage to 
 her beauty and her power ; and great nobles and 
 ambassadors flocked to her bedside, where she 
 received them with all the dignity and graciousness 
 of a sovereign lady. The most costly dresses and 
 jewels were showered on her by her royal lover, 
 who, to give her pleasure, made generals of three 
 of her brothers. 
 
 Nor was Francois by any means the jealous Ibver 
 her husband had proved ; for, while himself claim- 
 ing freedom to carry his love elsewhere, he was 
 content to turn a blind eye to his mistress's dallying 
 with any gallant of the Court who took her fancy — 
 even with that most dangerous of roues, Bonnivet, 
 Admiral of France, of whomMarguerited'Angouldme 
 tells so many piquant stories in her " Heptameron." 
 It was Bonnivet, hero of a hundred love adventures, 
 who, it may be remembered, one night made an 
 uninvited appearance in the room of Princess 
 Marguerite herself by means of a trap-door in the 
 ceiling — ^an entry which was followed by a speedy 
 and undignified exit. 
 
THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 385 
 
 When he found himself once more in his own 
 room, we read, " The candle was still burning on the 
 table before his mirror, which showed his face all 
 scratched and bitten, and the blood streaming from 
 it." " Thou are rightly served, pernicious beauty!" 
 the disillusioned Bonnivet exclaimed, as he gazed 
 at his reflected visage. " Thy vain promises set 
 upon an impossible enterprise, and one which, far 
 from increasing my good fortune, will perhaps 
 bring upon me a world of trouble." 
 
 For some years Frangoise held her supreme place 
 in the King's heart, in spite of her occasional lapses 
 and the furious jealousy of her husband, who, we 
 learn, " often caused her beautiful eyes to be filled 
 with tears by boxing her ears and administering 
 other corporal punishment to his faithless spouse." 
 Such exhibitions of jealousy, indeed, only served 
 to keep Frangois at her feet, for he imagined that 
 what another man desired so much was surely 
 worth keeping for himself. Her queendom, in fact, 
 only came to an end on the King's return from 
 captivity in Spain, in 1526. 
 
 It was with a Ught and gay heart that the 
 Comtesse made the journey, in company with the 
 King's sister and other ladies of the Court, to Mont 
 de Marsan to welcome her lover on his restoration 
 to liberty and his throne, little dreaming of the 
 blow Fate had prepared for her. She knew well 
 that the Duchesse d'Angoulfime, Franfois's mother, 
 
 2B 
 
386 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 had grown to hate her, and that she would love 
 nothing^ better than to see her supplanted in her 
 son's favour ; but Frangoise could afford to smile 
 at such jealousy, since she knew the King's heart 
 was all hers. 
 
 Among the group of ladies eagerly awaiting the 
 King's coming was the Duchesse, and by her side a 
 young beauty, " with a dazzhng complexion, white 
 as a lily and crimson as the rose," whom she had 
 brought with her in the hope of making her her 
 son's new mistress. This young and lovely rival 
 was the daughter of Gmllaume de Pisseleu, a 
 captain of the Legion of Picardy, whom the 
 Duchesse had brought to Court as maid of honour 
 while her son was in his Madrid dungeon. He had 
 already heard from his mother of her beauty and 
 her wit, her love of letters and art, and there were 
 many in the group of ladies who anticipated with 
 relish the coming meeting. 
 
 When at last the King appeared, radiant and 
 debonair, Frangoise stood trembling in anticipation 
 of the loving greeting which she had no doubt 
 awaited her after he had embraced his mother and 
 sister. As he advanced in her direction she saw 
 to her dismay that he gave her no glance, even of 
 recognition, but went straight to her lovely rival, 
 Anne de Pisseleu, whom he greeted with a sweeping 
 bow and words of gallantry which brought blushes 
 of pleasure to her cheeks. The Duchesse's schem- 
 
THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 387 
 
 ing had proved more successful then even she had 
 dared to hope ; for at first sight of the new beauty 
 her son had succumbed, and the Comtesse's reign 
 was ended. A few days later Anne de Pisseleu was 
 installed as the King's mistress, and the discarded 
 Frangoise was sent back to her chateau on the 
 Chere, and to her husband, who had waited so 
 long for her return — and his revenge. 
 
 One of the first acts of the new favourite was to 
 claim the jewels of her predecessor, the precious 
 gifts of the King designed by his sister ; and in 
 obedience to her wish Frangois sent a message to 
 demand their return. The Comtesse kept the 
 messenger waiting while she had them all melted 
 down ; then she returned the ingots with the 
 message that, " As every word they had borne was 
 engraved on her heart she could well spare them ; 
 but that no one else should enjoy the love tokens 
 which she had solely valued as coming from him." 
 
 Of the fate that befell the Comtesse de Chateau- 
 briand at the hands of her jealous husband con- 
 flicting stories are told. According to one story, 
 after being immured for weeks in a black-draped 
 room, she was bled to death by two surgeons, while 
 four men held her down. Another tells us how she 
 was starved to death. All that is certainly known 
 is that she died a victim to the vengeance of her 
 husband, who crowned his cruelty by raising 
 over her grave a splendid monument, with a 
 
388 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 mock epitaph praising her many virtues and her 
 chastity ! 
 
 Before the grave had closed over this ill-fated 
 victim of a King's lust and a husband's vengeance, 
 Anne de Pisseleu was firmly enthroned in her place 
 as mattresse en titre to Francois, and had blossomed 
 into the Duchesse d'fitampes. As was the custom 
 when a King of France took for favourite an un- 
 married lady, she was provided with a husband 
 in La Brosse, a man who was glad to purchase so 
 easily pardon for his treason in taking up arms 
 for the Bourbons against his sovereign, and equally 
 glad, the moment the ceremony was over, to leave 
 his bride for ever, while he went off to his restored 
 estates in Brittany. 
 
 It was not long before the new Duchesse made it 
 quite clear to Fran9ois that she meant to have no 
 rivalry near her throne. One by one she rid the 
 Court of all who were not prepared to bow down to 
 her, and at her bidding the King even consented 
 to send his beloved sister. Marguerite (now wife of 
 Henry of Navarre) into exile, unmoved by the 
 tears she shed — " Enough " (to quote her own 
 words) " to melt a flint." 
 
 For Frangois now there was only one woman in 
 all the world. He had no thought to spare for the 
 Comtesse, whom his treachery had consigned to a 
 horrible fate in the Chateaubriand ; for Ximena, 
 the lovely daughter of the Duke of Infantado, who 
 
THE "PLAYTHINGS" OF A KING 389 
 
 had loved him so passionately when he was a 
 prisoner in Spain ; or for the fair Queen Eleanore, 
 whom he had vowed with many kisses to love for 
 ever, and who had danced the fandango so prettily 
 for him at Toledo. He was possessed, body and 
 soul, by the " lovely, gay, witty, intoxicating 
 demoiselle from Picardy, brillante de nouveauU, de 
 I'espirance, who from the first, with the fascination 
 of a serpent, drew him into and held him firmly 
 in her seductive coils." 
 
 For a score of years, until, in fact, Francois drew 
 his last breath at Rambouillet, one March day in 
 1547, the siren from Picardy retained her spell over 
 the King of France, reaping such a harvest as few 
 royal favourites have ever reaped. The Treasury 
 was placed at her disposal, to help herself as she 
 would ; stately chateaux and large estates were 
 hers without the asking ; she decked her beauty 
 with the Crown jewels, which none but a queen 
 had ever worn before. Dignities and rich offices 
 were lavished on a legion of relatives, including her 
 thirty brothers and sisters, and a cardinal's hat was 
 procured for her uncle. 
 
 And in return for all this largess she rewarded 
 her lover with infidelity and treachery. She even 
 sold him to his lifelong rival and enemy, Charles 
 v.. Emperor of Germany, under his very nose, as 
 the following story proves . One day, when Charles, 
 during a temporary truce, was a guest at the French 
 
390 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Court, while the Duchesse held to him a golden 
 ewer at dinner-time, he dropped into it a magni- 
 ficent diamond ring. When Anne fished the ring 
 out of the ewer to return it, the Emperor, "assuming 
 his most amiable expression, begged that one so 
 fair as the owner of the bowl would honour him by 
 accepting the j ewel . ' ' Such an offer, so courteously 
 expressed, proved irresistible. She accepted the 
 ring, and with it the Emperor's friendship ; and 
 when Charles next invaded France there was no 
 spy so active or useful on his behalf as the mistress 
 of his enemy. In fact, it was to her he owed the 
 capture of two important strongholds, which 
 enabled him to dictate terms of peace. 
 
 Even when the incomparable Diane de Poitiers, 
 the mistress of the boy-dauphin, Henri, brought 
 her ripe beauty and scheming brain to Court, the 
 Duchesse's supremacy remained unshaken. She 
 arraj^d against the " interloper " all the most 
 powerful forces of the Court, poisoned the minds of 
 the King and Queen against her, exposed the arts 
 by which she enhanced her middle-aged charms, 
 and openly insulted her by boasting in her hearing 
 that she (the Duchesse) was born on the very day 
 on which Madame la Seneschale was married. 
 
 Thus, the demoiselle of Provence retained her 
 queendom and made a puppet of Fran9ois until he 
 drew his last breath in her arms at Rambouillet. 
 Then came the swift end of all things for her, and 
 
THE " PLAYTHINGS " OF A KING 391 
 
 sweet revenge for her rival. When she returned 
 to Paris from the King's deathbed she found her 
 apartments in the palace occupied ; the new King 
 refused even to see her, and all her garnered jewels 
 Were taken from her to bedeck Diane de Poitiers, 
 Henri's mistress, who at last had " come to her 
 own." Her lover, Bossut de Longueval, was seized 
 in the middle of the night in the room of a beautiful 
 young Italian lady who was maid of honour to the 
 new Queen (Catherine de Medicis), and was sent to 
 the Bastille. . As for Madame d'j^tampes, she was 
 glad to escape from the Court, in which she had 
 become an object of hatred and derision, to spend 
 her remaining days in the obscurity of the country. 
 
CHAPTER XXX 
 
 THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 
 
 " I NEVER was in love, except, perhaps, with 
 Josephine — a little," the great Napoleon once 
 confessed. " And when I first knew her I was 
 twenty-seven years of age. For Marie Louise I 
 had — a sincere affection." But if Josephine was 
 the only woman who ever really captured Napoleon's 
 heart, it is certain that before he set eyes on the 
 bewitching Corsican he had had as many love 
 affairs as he had counted years. 
 
 He himself, with a refreshing ingenuousness, 
 tells the story of his first love adventure when he 
 was a boy of eighteen. " I had come out from the 
 Italiens," he says, " and was walking rapidly along 
 the alleys of the Palais Royal, when my eyes fell 
 on a woman. The time and place, no less than her 
 general appearance and her extreme youth, left no 
 doubt on my mind as to her calling. She stopped, 
 and I noticed that her bearing was not in the least 
 brazen. Encouraged by her timidity, I spoke to 
 her — I, whose repugnance to her class is such that 
 I feel myself contaminated by a glance from one of 
 its members. But her pale complexion, her frail 
 physique, and her soft voice decided me at once. 
 
 392 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 393 
 
 ' You are very cold,' I began ; ' how can you ven- 
 ture into these alleys ? ' ' Ah, sir, the cold refreshes 
 me. I must finish my evening. . . .' " 
 
 Thus the world's conqueror begins the story of his 
 first essay in love, which he defines as " the occupa- 
 tion of the idle man, the distraction of the warrior, 
 the rock of the sovereign," and in the next breath 
 as "a silly infatuation — depend on it." To 
 Napoleon it was certainly never more than the 
 distraction of the warrior ; and he was speaking 
 the truth when he declared, " All the women 
 in the world would not make me lose an hour." 
 
 That he had some strange fascination for women 
 there can be no doubt whatever ; for conquest in 
 love came as easily to him as success in war. But 
 what was the secret of this fascination it is not easy 
 to say. As a young man his appearance was singu- 
 larly unattractive. No man ever less looked the 
 lover than the puny, pale, shabby little fellow who 
 walked the Paris streets in his days of obscurity 
 and poverty — so poor was he, in fact, that, as he 
 confesses, " I can only afford one meal in the day, at 
 three o'clock," and that meal cost him but three- 
 pence a plate. " His lank hair floated uncombed 
 over his shoulders, his overcoat was threadbare, his 
 whole appearance unkempt," a lady who knew him 
 at the time wrote to Stendhal. " He vvas far and 
 away the thinnest and most curious-looking creature 
 I had ever met — so desperately thin as to give one 
 
394 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 the notion that he was the victim of some wasting 
 disease." His hands, according to the Duchesse 
 d'Abrantes, were not merely ungloved, but dirty ; 
 he slouched along the streets with a careless, 
 clownish gait, and his boots were as badly cared 
 for as they were ill-fitting. 
 
 And yet this do wn-at -heels young subaltern, 
 living in a couple of miserable rooms on forty-five 
 pounds a year with his young brother Louis — one 
 destined to be an emperor, the other King of Holland 
 — ^had as many love affairs as any gallant of the 
 Court who strutted in fine feathers. When he went 
 to Valence, in 1785, a " shy, melancholy youth, 
 much-engrossed in study," he found a welcome in 
 most of the great houses of the neighbourhood, and 
 won many smiles from the daughters of his hostesses, 
 to one of whom. Mademoiselle Caroline du Colum- 
 bier, he as nearly lost his heart as was possible for 
 him. It was quite an idyllic story, which he recalled 
 many years later, in his days of exile and shattered 
 fortunes, in these words : "No one could have 
 been more innocent than we were. We used often 
 to arrange little assignations. I remember one in 
 particular, at daybreak on amidsummer's morning. 
 Will it be believed, our sole delight on that occa- 
 sion was in nibbhng cherries together ! " 
 
 His next love affair was of a very different nature. 
 It was when, as a newly promoted captain of artil- 
 lery, he was spending a few weeks' leave in his 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 395 
 
 native Corsica ; and the story is thus told by Baron 
 Larrey : " Bonaparte gave his mother a great deal 
 of anxiety in connection with a love affair with 
 -a woman who had conceived a violent passion for 
 him, and who was endowed with all the jealousy of 
 her race. Having ascertained that she had been 
 abandoned for another mistress, she resolved on 
 vengeance. Inviting him to dinner, she mixed 
 poison with his wine, and caused him to drink it 
 at a draught. Later in the evening most alarming 
 symptoms supervened, and the young officer's life 
 was in imminent danger. His mother, who had 
 been immediately told of the matter, hastened 
 to his side, and prepared the remedies which the 
 doctor prescribed." 
 
 Napoleon, however, was reserved for a very 
 different destiny than a jealous mistress had 
 planned for him ; and a little later we find him 
 making violent love to Mademoiselle Victorine 
 Chastenay, the belle of Chatillon-sur-Seine, who was 
 " astonished, electrified, enchanted " by the shabby 
 " long-haired miUtary person, with the devouring 
 eyes." A few days of idyllic wooing, of secret 
 meetings and bhssful rambles, and Bonaparte said 
 good-bye to the weeping Victorine, while he de- 
 parted in search of fresh adventures . Within a few 
 weeks he was at the feet of Madame Permon, a 
 buxom widow, mother of a large family, and still 
 wearing weeds for her late husband. 
 
396 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 When, bending over the widow's plump white 
 hand, he gravely asked her to be his wife, Madame 
 looked at him for a moment in amazement, and then 
 — shook with laughter. When she had at last 
 recovered from her merriment she said, " My dear 
 Napoleon, pray don't think I am laughing at you. 
 I am laughing at myself for the ridiculous role you 
 are assigning me. Perhaps you think that you 
 know my age ? Well, you don't ; and I am not 
 going to tell it to you. What I will tell you is that 
 I am old enough to be your mother ; and not only 
 yours, but Joseph's to boot. And now let us bring 
 this afflicting joke to an end." In vain Napoleon 
 protested that he was never more serious in his life ; 
 that her age mattered less than nothing to him ; 
 and that he should know no happiness unless she 
 consented. The widow was inexorable. 
 
 But Bonaparte was never the man to allow defeat 
 to quench his courage. Before Madame Permon had 
 ceased to laugh at the absurd position in which his 
 gallantry had placed her, he was absorbed in pursuit 
 of that " mellow siren, Montansier, actress, adven- 
 turess, and woman of pleasure " a lady who had 
 counted her lovers by scores before Napoleon was 
 cradled, and who might easily have been his grand- 
 mother. 
 
 To this ancient charmer Napoleon now began to 
 pay assiduous court ; and the climax came at a 
 meeting arranged by Barras, who tells \is, with 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 397 
 
 infinite gusto, " I betrothed the future spouses that 
 very day, and they both agreed with equal wiUing- 
 ness. I thought I must have exploded with 
 laughter, but was compelled to keep serious. At 
 table I placed Mademoiselle Montansier beside 
 me, telling Bonaparte to take a seat opposite. 
 Throughout dinner they sat with their eyes fixed 
 on one another." And so on through pages of 
 entertaining description. 
 
 But whether Napoleon actually proposed to this 
 ancient Circe, who, Barras declares, " could not 
 have been less than seventy," or whether, as Lady 
 Elliott states, " she rejected his offer," we know not. 
 It remains as evidence of his susceptibility, that 
 a woman who had been visited by such gallants as 
 the Due de la Tremoille and the Marquis de Jonsac, 
 before he was born, still had the power to set the 
 heart of the coming Emperor a-flutter ! 
 
 Such are a few of Napoleon's early love adven- 
 tures, which are now almost unknown to the world, 
 and which justify his boast in later and much 
 different years, " I have conquered hearts as well 
 as countries." 
 
 That Napoleon loved his wife Josephine, and that 
 she was possibly the only woman he ever truly 
 loved, may be true enough. But that he could not 
 long be loyal even to her the following little-known 
 episode in his life proves. No sooner had he set 
 foot in Egypt in 1798 than, as Monsieur Masson 
 
398 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 tells us, "he seems to have felt an attraction of 
 curiosity towards the women of the East, as had 
 many of his officers . Some half-dozen were brought 
 before him, but their appearance, and notably their 
 obesity, filled him with disgust, and they were 
 hastily dismissed. He was already remarkable for 
 the extraordinary fastidiousness of his senses, and 
 the irritable delicacy of his nervous organisation." 
 But if the houris of the East failed to attract him, 
 there were others who pleased his eyes. Among 
 the many women who, disguised as soldiers, had 
 accompanied his army, the flower of the flock was 
 a little fair-haired lady, with a brilliant complexion 
 and exquisite teeth, who would have been attrac- 
 tive anywhere. In Egypt she was adorable. 
 
 Marguerite Pauline Belleisle had been a 
 milliner's apprentice at Carcassone when her 
 employer's nephew, a young lieutenant of the 22nd 
 Chasseurs, succumbed to her beauty and made her 
 his wife. Before the honeymoon had waned, 
 however, the bridegroom received orders to embark 
 for Egypt ; and the bride, who was in no mood 
 to be left behind, donned chasseur's uniform (for 
 women were not allowed to join the expedition) 
 and sailed in the same ship with her husband. 
 Under what conditions Napoleon first set eyes on 
 the pretty ex-milliner is doubtful. According to 
 one story he was riding one day with his staff in the 
 neighbourhood of Cairo when " he had to draw rein 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 399 
 
 to allow of the passage of a party of travellers 
 mounted upon Arab donkeys. His ready eye 
 picked out among the riders a young woman with 
 a piquant, vivacious expression," with the fresh 
 rose-colouring of a schoolgirl, eyes sparkling with 
 enjoyment, and the gleam of pearly teeth between 
 red, daintily curved lips. 
 
 Monsieur ' Masson, however, tells us that his 
 attention was first drawn to her by an aide-de- 
 camp, as, with head upturned and parted lips, 
 she was watching a balloon rise at a f^te held at 
 Esbekieh. In the evening he saw her again in the 
 Tivoli Egyptien, a pleasure garden modelled on the 
 Paris Tivoli, where he approached her, paid her all 
 manner of compliments, and spent half the evening 
 at her side. Further meetings followed, at each of 
 which Madame Foures' resistance became less and 
 less strong. Prompted either by virtue or prudence 
 the little woman held out for some time . Protesta- 
 tions, declarations, letters, costly presents were 
 necessary. At last she succumbed. 
 
 The climax arrived with an invitation to dine, 
 in company with other ladies, with Napoleon. To 
 Madame Foures was assigned the place of honour 
 at Napoleon's right hand ; and he did the honours 
 with great gallantry. "All of a sudden he threw 
 over a decanter of iced water, as if by accident, and 
 on the pretext of repairing the damage done to his 
 neighbour's dress he carried her out of the room." 
 
400 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 Thus, while he was writing to his wife in distant 
 Paris, " I kiss you on the hps ; I kiss you on the 
 heart," Napoleon was finding solace in his exile in 
 making love to " lips that were near." 
 
 The only obstacle now in his path of love was the 
 unsuspecting lieutenant ; and it was no difficult 
 matter to get rid of him. One day Foures was 
 summoned before General Berthier, Chief of the 
 Staff, to learn that he had been chosen for a respon- 
 sible mission — to carry despatches to Paris — and 
 that he must start on his journey within an hour. 
 The lieutenant, overcome by the honour thus 
 unexpectedly offered to him, stammered, " I must 
 go and warn my wife — ^to pack up." " Your wife? " 
 exclaimed Berthier ; " why, you must be crazy. 
 For one thing, she would be horribly ill on a small 
 vessel, badly victualled, and which may have 
 to face some risks ; besides, it would never be 
 allowed." And Foures sailed away to France, 
 leaving a tearful, but secretly delighted, wife 
 behind him. 
 
 But all was not to be smooth sailing for the 
 lovers. Before the Chasseur had lost sight of land 
 she was captured by an English cruiser, whose 
 commander, to quote Madame d'Abrantes, " knew 
 quite enough of the episode of the Commander-in- 
 Chief and Madame Foures to feel overjoyed at being 
 able to engineer such a striking effect in the little 
 comedy which was being enacted. And so, with 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 401 
 
 the utmost courtesy, he landed the worthy 
 Ueutenant on Egyptian territory and wished 
 him good luck." 
 
 When Foures arrived at Cairo he found to his 
 dismay that his bird had flown and had found a new 
 cage, close to the quarters of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, where she was by no means pleased to see 
 him, and where she had been spending the too brief 
 period of his absence very agreeably. In vain he 
 stormed and raged, wept and pleaded. She was 
 much too happy to return to his arms — ^in fact, she 
 demanded a divorce to escape from his violence and 
 persecution ; and Napoleon saw that effect was 
 speedily given to his lady's wishes. A divorce 
 was granted in the presence of the commissary 
 of the army, and the outraged husband was 
 packed off again to France, this time with more 
 success. 
 
 Then followed a few halcyon months for the 
 pretty " Bellilote," the name by which she loved to 
 be known. Surrounded by luxury, richly dressed, 
 she played the " queen " to perfection, doing the 
 honours of the palace to the few French ladies with 
 the army and entertaining the generals at dinner- 
 parties. She was to be seen everywhere, radiantly 
 young and lovely and happy, with Napoleon by her 
 side — walking on the public promenades, driving 
 in an open carriage with a brilliant escort of cavalry, 
 or riding an Arab horse in general's uniform, a 
 
 2C 
 
402 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 three-cornered hat on her head. Round her neck 
 she wore a long chain, from which hung her lover's 
 miniature, and everywhere the soldiers greeted her 
 coming with cheers, and shouts of, " Theie's our 
 Generaless ! " So infatuated became Napoleon 
 with his new plaj^hing that he seriously contem- 
 plated marr5dng her, after procuring a divorce from 
 Josephine, who, he learned, was finding similar 
 solace for separation in Paris. And there is little 
 doubt that the ex-milliner might have been wife of 
 the Emperor-to-be, if she had only quahfied for the 
 honour by becoming the mother of his child. But 
 Madame Foures' reign was destined to be short- 
 lived, for when Napoleon returned to France, after 
 the battle of Aboukir, he left her, weeping and dis- 
 consolate, behind, declaring that he could not take 
 her with him for fear lest the English might capture 
 him, and of the scandal that would result if she were 
 found to be his companion. Thus for a time she 
 was condemned to remain in Egypt, divorced from 
 her husband, separated from her lover, and shunned 
 by all who, in the days of her pride, had been her 
 courtiers and flatterers. And when, at last, she 
 was permitted to embark for France, she arrived 
 too late. Napoleon was once more in the toils of 
 Josephine ; he was now, as First Consul, ruler of 
 France, and he refused even to see the woman to 
 whom but a few months earlier he had vowed 
 undying affection. 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 403 
 
 To add to her troubles, the husban^ whom she 
 had hoped never to see again made his' appearance 
 in Paris, and, declaring that the divorce was 
 irregular, " beset her with the utmost urgency, 
 begging, threatening, moving things high and low 
 in his efforts to obtain her return to him." Belli- 
 lote's lot had indeed fallen in evil places. But 
 although Napoleon refused to see her, he had by no 
 means forgotten her, and was willing to extricate 
 her from her difficulties . He gave her large sums of 
 money, made her a grant of sixty thousand francs 
 from the theatrical fund, and he bought for her 
 a country house near Paris. To complete her 
 emancipation he also found a husband for her in 
 Monsieur Henri de Ranchoup, member of an old 
 Auvergnat family, whom he appointed Vice-Consul 
 at Gothenburg on his wedding day. 
 
 Madame de Ranchoup, however, decUned to 
 follow her new husband to Gothenburg. She 
 preferred the seductions of Paris, where she soon 
 became a -persona grata in fashionable circles, 
 amusing herself by painting and novel-writing, in 
 both of which she exhibited more than ordinary 
 skill. 
 
 In a letter published in a provincial French paper 
 a few years ago we get an interesting ghmpse of 
 Madame at this period of her second marriage — 
 " Madame Ranchoup hved at Craponne from 
 August 1812 to March 1814. The name was 
 
404 ENSLAVERS OF KINGS 
 
 almost forgotten in the district when, in July 1812, 
 Monsieur Barres, Secretary-General to the Prefec- 
 ture, wrote to M. Gallet, then a lawyer at Craponne, 
 desiring him to receive Madame de Ranchoup, 
 banished by imperial decree from Paris. A few 
 days afterwards a young lady, very fashionably 
 dressed, arrived with a servant. She announced 
 herself as one of the Empress's ladies-in-waiting, 
 who had come to the country for her health. She 
 received a number of newspapers, which she read 
 seated in front of M. Gallet's house, or smoking 
 at the open window, to the great amazement 
 of the ladies of Craponne, with whom she was 
 not chary of her sarcasms. She often went out 
 accompanied by a dog with long silky hair, for 
 which she had a great affection, generally taking 
 him to church with her, to the great scandal of the 
 devout. She left Craponne at the approach of the 
 first invading army." 
 
 After five years of such mockery of wedded life, 
 Madame de Ranchoup separated from her husband, 
 and sailed for Brazil with Sieur Jean Auguste 
 Bellard, a retired officer of Guards, taking with her 
 a cargo of goods which she bartered in Brazil for 
 rosewood and mahogany. Thus, combining love 
 with commerce, the adventurous lady continued 
 her journeys across the seas until 1837, when she 
 finally settled in Paris. 
 
 Here she spent the remainder of her long and 
 
THE DISTRACTIONS OF A WARRIOR 405 
 
 romantic life, surrounded by her pet birds and 
 monkeys, writing, painting, playing the harp, 
 and renewing the friendships of her earlier days, 
 until at last death claimed her one March day 
 in i860. 
 
THE RIVERSIDE PRESS LIMITED, EDINBURGH